LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


//' 


u 


ADDRESSES 


DELIVERED 


ON    SEVERAL    OCCASIONS 


BY 


ALEXANDER    HAMILTON    BULLOCK. 


WITH    A    MEMOIR 
By    GEORGE     F.    HOAR. 


BOSTON: 
LITTLE,   BROWN,   AND   COMPANY. 

1883. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1883, 

By   a.    G.   Bullock, 
In  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


University  Press: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


/  ' 


CONTENTS. 


-♦- 


SPEECH   AT   A   AVAR  MEETING,  page 


To  aid  and  encourage  the  Formation  of  the  Third  Worcester 

County  Regiment,  at  Mechanics'  Hall,  Oct.  14,  1861  ...         1 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   THE   WAR  TAX. 

Address  in  the  Massachusetts  House  of  Representatives,  April  10, 

1862 9 


ADDRESS 
Before  the  Aliunni,  at  Amherst  College,  July  8,  1863 30 

REMARKS 

On  the  Occasion  of  the  Reception  of  the  Twenty-first  Massachu- 
setts Regiment  by  the  Citizens  of  Worcester,  Feb.  3,  1864  .     .       40 

RELATIONS   OF  THE   EDUCATED    MAN   WITH    AMERICAN 

NATIONALITY. 

Address  before  the  Literary  Societies  of  Williams  College,  Aug.  1, 

1864 45 

SPEECH 
Before  the  Republican  State  Convention  at  Worcester,  Sept.  15, 

1864 66 

ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

A  Eulogy  before  the  City  Council  and  Citizens  of  Worcester, 

June  1,  1865 76 


Vi  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

A   COMMEMORATIVE   ADDRESS 

Delivered  at  Koyalston,  Mass.,  Aug.  23,  1865,  at  the  Hundredth 

Anniversary  of  the  incorporation  of  the  Town 108 

ADDRESS 
Delivered  before  the  Massachusetts  Charitable  Mechanic  Associa- 
tion at  Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  Oct.  4,  1865 131 

SPEECH 
At  a  Mass  Meeting  in  Mechanics'  Hall,  in  Worcester,  Feb.  10, 
1866,  called  to  consider  what  action  shall  be  taken  by  the  City 
of  Worcester  to  commemorate  the  service  of  Citizens  who  lost 
their  lives  in  the  War  for  the  Union 151 

SPEECH 

At  a  Meeting  of  Alumni  of  Amherst  College,  July  12,  1866,  at 

Amherst 156 

FOURTH   OF   JULY   ORATION 
Delivered  at  Springfield,  Mass.,  1867 162 

ADDRESS 

Before  the  Worcester  Agricultural  Society,  Sept.  17,  1868,  at  the 
presentation  of  Resolutions  in  memory  of  the  late  Levi  Lin- 
coln, ex-Governor  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  for  many  years 
President  of  this  Society 176 

ADDRESS 
Before  the  Worcester  County  Free  Institute  of  Industrial  Science, 

Nov.  11,  1868 187 

SPEECH 
At  a   Dinner  given  to  General  Dix,  United  States  Minister  to 

France,  by  Americans  at  Paris,  in  1869 195 

DEDICATION    OF   THE   SOLDIERS'    MONUMENT 
At  Worcester,  July  15,  1874 202 


CONTENTS.  Vll 


Pi.O£ 

INTELLECTUAL   LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY. 

An  Address  delivered  before   the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society,  at 

Brown  University,  Providence,  June  15,  1875 222 

ADDRESS 
Delivered  at  Music  Hall,  Boston,  Feb.  8,  1876,  on  the  Character 

of  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Howe 248 

THE   CENTENNIAL   SITUATION   OF  WOMAN. 

Address  at  the  Commencement  Anniversary  of  Mount  Holyoke 

Seminary,  Massachusetts,  June  22,  1876 258 

ALEXANDER   HAMILTON. 

Address  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Statue  in  New  York,  Nov.  20,  1880     287 

CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION. 

Prepared  at  the  request  of  the  President  of  the  American  Antiqua- 
rian Society,  and  read  at  the  Semi-annual  Meeting  of  the 
Society,  in  Boston,  April  27,  1881 298 

JAMES   A.   GARFIELD. 
Memorial  Observances  in  the  City  of  Worcester,  Sept.  26,  1881     .     344 


INDEX 351 


MEMOIR 


OP 


ALEXANDER   HAMILTON    BULLOCK. 


The  subject  of  this  memoir,  like  many  other  of 
the  eminent  men  of  Massachusetts,  never  held  any 
national  office,  and  never  was  a  candidate  for  any. 
The  result  of  his  life  must  be  seen  in  the  history  of 
his  native  State,  of  the  populous  and  wealthy  com- 
munity where  his  life  was  spent,  and  in  the  speeches 
contained  in  this  volume,  and  many  others  of  equal 
excellence.  Yet  he  had  a  high  reputation  through- 
out the  country.  He  was,  at  the  time  of  his  death, 
justly  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  brilliant  orators 
in  America,  and  the  subjects  with  which  he  dealt  in 
his  public  addresses  are  of  permanent  and  national 
importance  and  interest. 

Alexander  Hamilton  Bullock  was  born  in  Roy- 
alston,  Worcester  County,  Massachusetts,  March  2, 
1816.  He  was  the  son  of  Rufus  Bullock  and  Sarah 
(Davis)  Bullock.  Rufus  Bullock  was  born  in  Roy- 
alston,  September  23,  1779,  fourteen  years  after  the 
incorporation  of  the  town,  was  a  school  teacher  in  his 
youth,  afterward  a  country  merchant,  until,  in  1825, 
he  engaged  in  manufacturing,  by  which  he  acquired 
a  large  and  sohd  fortune.     He  represented  Royalstou 


X  ■  MEMOm   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

for  five  years  in  the  Massachusetts  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives; was  twice  Senator  for  Worcester  County; 
was  a  member  of  the  conventions  for  revising  the 
Constitution  in  1820  and  1853 ;  was  Presidential 
Elector  in  1852  on  the  Whig  ticket;  was  a  Trustee 
of  Amherst  College,  to  which  he  presented  a  fine 
telescope ;  and  left  liberal  bequests  to  three  religious 
societies  for  the  support  of  preaching,  and  to  the 
town  in  aid  of  its  common  schools.  He  was  a  man 
of  strict  integrity  and  sound  judgment,  preserving 
the  vigor  and  freshness  of  youth  until  his  death  at 
nearly  fourscore,  able  to  carry  in  his  memory  the 
details  and  accounts  of  a  large  and  complicated 
business,  so  that  it  was  said  of  him,  "  His  mind  was 
his  office;"  an  interesting  companion,  patriotic  and 
public-spirited,  fond  of  reading,  a  deep  student  and 
reverent  lover  of  the  Bible,  a  cheerful  and  liberal 
supporter  of  the  institutions  of  learning  and  religion, 
loving  the  old  doctrines,  but  catholic,  and  tolerant 
of  other  men's  opinions. 

Alexander  was  fitted  for  college  in  his  native  town 
and  at  Leicester  Academy.  He  entered  Amherst  Col- 
lege in  1832,  and  was  graduated  in  1836,  the  second 
scholar  in  his  class,  delivering  the  salutatory  oration 
at  Commencement.  Professor  Tyler,  in  his  "  History 
of  Amherst  College,"  says  of  him:  — 

"  His  tutor  in  mathematics  has  no  recollection  of  particu- 
lar accuracy  or  brilliancy  in  that  department.  But  he  ex- 
celled in  the  classics,  belles-lettres,  and  rhetoric ;  and  classmates 
and  fellow-students  saw  the  future  Governor  in  his  fine  per- 
son, his  courteous  manners,  his  ambition  and  influence,  and 
his  decided  bent  for  politics  and  public  affairs." 


MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK.  XI 

Mr.  Bullock  entered  Amherst  only  seven  years 
after  the  graduation  of  the  first  class  which  passed 
through  the  full  course  of  four  years.  The  excel- 
lence of  the  training  given  at  that  early  day  is  mani- 
fested by  the  number  of  eminent  men  who  were  his 
contemporaries.  This  is  especially  true  in  the  de- 
partment of  oratory  and  elegant  scholarship.  The 
first  scholar  in  his  class  was  William  Bradford  Homer 
who  died  at  twenty-four,  only  four  years  out  of  col- 
lege, after  a  ministry  of  four  months,  but  whose  writ- 
ings, edited  by  Dr.  Park,  show  that  he  would  have 
taken  a  high  rank  in  his  profession.  The  names  of 
Rev.  Richard  S.  Storrs,  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
Bishop  Huntington,  Horace  Maynard,  Galusha  A. 
Grow,  Dr.  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock,  and  Ensign  H. 
Kellogg  are  found  on  the  catalogue  in  Governor 
Bullock's  time. 

He  remained  all  his  life  a  firm  friend  of  his  College. 
He  was  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  from  1852 
until  his  death ;  president  of  the  Alumni  in  1864, 
1871,  and  1881 ;  and  chairman  of  the  financial  com- 
mittee of  the  Trustees  for  several  years.  He  received 
the  honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws  from  Amherst 
in  1865  and  from  Harvard  in  1866.  In  1871  he 
founded  the  Bullock  scholarship  of  the  class  of  1836. 
He  delivered  an  address  to  the  Society  of  the  Alumni 
on  retiring  from  the  presidency  in  1863,  and  an  ad- 
dress at  the  semi-centennial  celebration  of  the  found- 
ing of  the  College,  at  which  he  presided  in  1871, 
both  which  are  said  by  the  historian  of  the  College 
to  be  "  not  more  remarkable  for  classic  elegance  and 
grace  than  for  love  and  devotion  to  Alma  Mater." 


xii  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

After  graduating,  Mr.  Bullock  taught  school  at 
Royalston  and  at  Kingston,  Rhode  Island.  He  then 
studied  law  at  Harvard  Law  School,  under  Story  and 
Greenleaf.  Leaving  the  Law  School  in  1840,  he 
spent  a  year  in  the  office  of  Emory  Washburn,  at 
Worcester,  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1841. 
In  1842  he  served  as  aid  on  the  military  staff  of 
Governor  John  Davis. 

Mr.  Bullock  was  a  man  of  delicate  taste  and  sensi- 
tive organization.  He  disliked  personal  controversy. 
While  he  possessed  talents  which  would  have 
rendered  him  a  brilliant  and  persuasive  advocate, 
the  rough  contests  of  the  court  house  could  never 
have  been  congenial  to  him.  He  was  associated  with 
Judge  Thomas  as  junior  counsel  in  one  important 
capital  trial,  in  which  he  is  said  to  have  made  an  elo- 
quent opening  argument.  He  had  a  considerable 
clientage  for  a  young  man,  to  whom  he  was  a  safe 
and  trustworthy  adviser.  But  he  very  soon  estab- 
lished a  large  business  as  agent  of  important  in- 
surance companies,  and  withdrew  himself  altogether 
from  the  practice  of  law. 

His  taste  and  genius  led  him  to  the  paths  of  ht- 
erature  and  politics.  It  was  hardly  possible  that  a 
person  of  his  parentage  and  education  coming  to 
manhood  in  1840  in  Worcester  County  should  be 
anything  else  but  a  Whig.  There  were  many  things 
which  tended  to  make  that  great  political  organiza- 
tion attractive  to  a  cultivated  and  ingenuous  youth, 
and  to  give  it  its  strong  and  permanent  hold  on  the 
people  of  Massachusetts.  Its  standard  of  personal 
character  was  very  high.     Its  leading  men  every- 


MEMOIR  OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK.  Xlii 

where  in  the  State  —  Saltonstall,  Reed,  Lincoln, 
Briggs,  Allen,  Choate,  Davis,  Everett,  and  their  as- 
sociates —  were  men  whose  private  and  public  honor 
was  without  a  stain.  Mr.  Webster  was  at  the  ful- 
ness of  his  great  intellectual  power.  The  series  of 
speeches  and  professional  and  political  achievements 
which  began  with  the  oration  at  Plymouth  in  1820 
was  still  in  progress,  and  moved  the  youth  of  the 
State  almost  to  idolatry. 

The  Whig  party  possessed  another  advantage.  Its 
political  managers,  who  conducted  its  campaigns, 
made  up  its  conventions,  and  largely  directed  its 
policy,  were  not  its  holders  of  office,  or  its  seekers  of 
office.  It  contained  a  large  body  of  able  and  influ- 
ential men  who  wielded  the  power  of  absolute  dis- 
interestedness. They  were  satisfied  if  they  could 
contribute  by  counsel  or  labor  to  the  well-being  of 
the  State  by  the  advancement  of  their  cherished  po- 
litical principles,  and  asked  no  other  reward.  It  was 
deemed  unbecoming  for  a  candidate  for  office  to 
take  part  in  the  canvass  either  before  or  after  his 
nomination. 

The  essential  difference  between  the  two  great 
parties  that  divided  the  country  in  1840  was  this : 
The  Whigs  were  in  favor  of  using  wisely,  but  cour- 
ageously, the  great  public  forces  of  nation  and  State 
to  accomplish  public  objects  for  which  private  or  mu- 
nicipal powers  were  inadequate. 

It  may  seem  at  first  sight  remarkable  that  the 
Democrats,  who,  with  the  exception  of  one  term  of 
four  years,  and  brief  fragments  of  two  others,  con- 
trolled the   administration   of  the  nation  for  sixty 


XIV  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXA^^DEK   H.    BULLOCK. 

years,  should  have  endeavored  to  confine  within 
their  narrowest  limits  the  powers  they  themselves 
wielded.  The  Democrat  was  a  strict  constructionist 
both  in  the  nation  and  in  the  States,  —  even  in  the 
Democratic  States.  The  explanation  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  the  Slave  Power  controlled  the  Demo- 
cratic party.  The  Slave  Power  saw  that  the  national 
forces  would  in  all  probability  one  day  be  wielded  by 
the  Free  States,  which  were  growing  so  rapidly  in 
numbers,  wealth,  and  intelligence.  It  found  its  only 
security  in  pushing  to  an  extreme  the  doctrine  of 
State  Rights  as  against  the  National  Government, 
and  in  discouraging  the  promotion  of  education,  man- 
ufactures, and  railroads,  even  by  State  authority. 
The  Whig  demanded  that  the  great  powers  of  the 
Constitution  should  not  lie  unused.  He  wished  to 
develop  manufacture  by  national  protection,  to  fos- 
ter internal  and  external  commerce  by  liberal  grants 
for  rivers  and  harbors,  to  endow  railroads  and  canals 
and  other  public  ways  by  grants  of  public  lands  and 
from  the  treasury,  to  create  a  sound  currency,  to 
establish  a  uniform  system  for  the  collection  of  debts 
and  the  relief  of  debtors  by  a  national  bankrupt 
law. 

In  the  State,  the  Whig  favored  lending  the  State 
credit  to  railroads,  the  establishment  at  public  charge 
of  asylums  for  the  blind  and  insane  and  deaf  and 
dumb,  gifts  to  colleges,  and  a  liberal  expenditure  for 
schools.  The  strength  of  the  Whig  party  was  in  the 
Free  States ;  that  of  the  Democratic  party  wtis  in 
the  South.  The  Massachusetts  Whig  was  the  suc- 
cessor of  the  Federalists,  whose  leaders  had  abolished 


MEMOIR   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK.  XV 

slavery  here,  and  who  had  been  overthrown  by  the 
Virginia  dynasty.  The  Whig  party,  therefore,  dis- 
liked slavery,  and  opposed  the  acquisition  of  new 
territory  for  its  extension. 

Mr.  Bullock  soon  became  one  of  the  most  popular 
and  successful  of  the  younger  public  speakers  of  the 
Commonwealth.  His  voice  was  finely  modulated, 
pleasant,  and  musical.  He  was  slightly  above  the 
medium  height,  of  graceful  person  and  carriage.  He 
prepared  his  public  addresses  carefully,  but  always 
spoke  without  notes.  Worcester  contained  at  that 
time  many  men  of  great  ability,  among  them  John 
Davis,  Levi  Lincoln,  Charles  Allen,  Emory  Washburn, 
Ira  M.  Barton,  Pliny  Merrick,  and  Benjamin  F. 
Thomas.  But  no  public  speaker  was  preferred  to 
him  on  literary  or  social  occasions,  and  no  political 
audience  went  away  satisfied,  if  he  were  present  and 
had  not  spoken. 

In  1844  Mr.  Bullock  married  Elvira,  daughter  of 
Colonel  A.  G.  Hazard,  of  Enfield,  Connecticut,  the 
founder  of  the  celebrated  company  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  gunpowder,  Mrs.  Bullock  survives  her  hus- 
band. The  children  of  this  marriage  were  Augustus 
George  ;  Isabel,  who  married  Nelson  S.  Bartlett,  of 
Boston ;  Fanny,  who  married  Dr.  William  H.  Work- 
man, of  Worcester. 

March  1,  1842,  Mr.  Bullock  became  editor  of  the 
"  National  ^gis,"  a  weekly  Whig  newspaper,  pub- 
lished in  Worcester.  He  retained  this  connection 
several  years.  This  was  a  paper  of  remarkable  abil- 
ity, and  especially  excellent  in  the  department  of  its 
literary  selections,  which  was  due  to  Mr.  Bullock's 


XVI  MEMOIR  OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

extensive  reading  and  cultivated  taste.  It  was  worth 
more  than  many  magazines.  He  was  also  editor  of 
a  campaign  paper  called  "  Old  Massachusetts,"  issued 
from  the  ''  JEgis  "  office  for  three  months  before  the 
Presidential  election  of  1844,  and  of  a  like  paper 
called  the  "  True  Whig,"  issued  from  the  same  office 
for  three  months  before  the  Presidential  election  of 
1848. 

Mr.  Bullock  represented  Worcester  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts House  of  Representatives  in  1845,  1847,  and 

1848,  and  the  county  of  Worcester  in  the  Senate  in 

1849.  He  spoke  not  very  frequently,  and  only  on 
important  questions,  and  usually  with  careful  prepa- 
ration. Mr.  Hadley,  in  his  valuable  work  "  Massa- 
chusetts in  the  Rebellion,"  says  :  — 

"  The  session  of  1847  will  be  remembered  as  that  in  which 
Mr.  Gushing,  before  the  members  were  fairly  in  their  seats, 
offered  a  resolution  to  pay  twenty  thousand  dollars  out  of  the 
treasury  to  the  thousand,  or  more,  volunteers  for  the  war  with 
Mexico.  Mr.  Gushing  pressed  the  measure  with  great  vehe- 
mence, and  secured  a  favorable  report  from  the  committee  to 
whom  the  subject  was  referred.  Golonel  Bullock,  in  behalf 
of  a  minority  of  the  committee,  opposed  the  resolve  in  a 
speech  which  the  reports  characterized  as  '  eloquent  and  mas- 
terly ; '  turning  the  scales  of  opinion  against  this  most  adroit 
debater,  and  winning  for  himself  an  honorable  reputation 
throughout  the  State." 


"o^ 


His  eulogy  on  John  Quincy  Adams,  in  1848,  was 
especiall}^  impressive.  He  was  the  recognized  leader 
of  the  House  the  last  two  yeaTs,  serving  as  chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary  in  1848. 

He  was  Mayor  of  Worcester  in  1859.     His  term 


MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK.  xvii 

of  office  was  rendered  memorable  in  the  history  of 
the  city  by  the  estabUshment  of  the  City  Library,  of 
whose  board  of  trustees  he  was  the  first  president. 

He  was  appointed  Commissioner  of  Insolvency  for 
the  County  of  Worcester  by  Governor  Clifford  in 
1853.  The  jurisdiction  of  these  officers  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Court  of  Insolvency  by  statute  of  1856. 
Mr.  Bullock  was  appointed  Judge  of  that  court  for 
the  County  of  Worcester  in  June,  1856,  and  held 
the  office  until  he  resio-ned  it  in  1858. 

But  a  greater  question  than  any  question  of  State 
administration  was  destined  to  disturb  the  repose 
of  the  Whigs  of  Massachusetts.  The  annexation  of 
Texas  in  1844,  and  the  events  of  the  sixteen  follow- 
ing years,  brought  about  by  the  restless  ambition  of 
the  same  power,  separated  that  great  historic  party 
into  two  divisions,  which  became  more  and  more 
estranged  from  each  other  until  the  attack  on  Sumter 
united  them  again  in  one  overpowering  sentiment  of 
patriotic  devotion  to  their  country  in  its  time  of  peril. 
The  time  has  come  when  the  survivors  of  each  of 
these  divisions  may  understand  and  do  justice  to  the 
other. 

Mr.  Bullock  agreed  with  Webster,  Everett,  Choate, 
and  the  elders  among  the  Whig  leaders  of  Massachu- 
setts, in  the  belief  that  if  slavery  were  confined  with- 
in the  bounds  fixed  by  the  Constitution,  the  natural 
growth  of  the  Free  States  would  constantly  diminish 
its  power,  and  the  interest  of  the  Slave  States  would 
in  the  future  put  an  end  to  its  existence.  They  be- 
lieved it  desirable  that  the  Whig  organization,  w^hich 

embraced   moderate   men   in   both   sections  of  the 

b 


XVIU  MEMOIR   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

country,  should  be  maintained.  They  dreaded  the 
formation  of  a  sectional  party ;  and  they  thought  a 
party  making  opposition  to  slavery  one  of  its  dis- 
tinctive and  avowed  doctrines  would  surely  be  sec- 
tional. They  opposed  the  annexation  of  Texas,  the 
war  with  Mexico,  the  acquisition  of  California,  and 
the  aggressions  upon  Kansas.  But  they  also  op- 
posed the  formation  of  a  political  party  based  on 
opposition  to  either  of  these  things.  Most  of  them 
agreed  with  Webster  and  Clay  in  their  support  of 
the  Compromise  measures  of  1850,  which  they  vainly 
thought  would  put  the  national  discussion  of  slavery 
at  rest  forever.  They  believed  the  Southern  men- 
aces of  disunion  were  real  and  earnest,  and  dreaded 
the  civil  war  which  would  follow  the  attempt  to 
carry  out  these  threats,  as  certain  to  be  the  most 
terrible  of  evils,  and  in  all  probability  to  result  in 
the  destruction  of  the  nation. 

Two  things  must  be  conceded  to  these  statesmen : 
First,  that  they  were  right  in  their  estimate  of  the 
sincerity  of  the  South  in  its  threats,  and  the  terrible 
nature  of  the  war  which  followed  them  ;  Second,  that 
to  the  postponement  of  the  struggle,  caused  by  the 
Compromise  of  1850,  was,  in  all  probability,  due  the 
success  of  the  North  in  the  final  conflict. 

To  Webster  and  Choate  was  denied  the  opportu- 
nity of  testifying  their  devotion  to  their  country 
when  the  civil  w^ar  came,  and  of  showing  that  it  was 
no  lack  of  patriotism  or  love  of  liberty  that  deter- 
mined their  action  in  the  momentous  period  which 
preceded  the  war. 

Mr.  Bullock,  like  Mr.  Everett,  was  more  fortunate. 


MEMOIR   OF  ALEXANDER   11.    BULLOCK.  XIX 

From  the  earliest  breaking  out  of  hostilities,  there 
was  no  more  zealous  supporter  of  the  Government. 
With  the  spring  of  1861  began  the  most  important 
and  conspicuous  portion  of  his  public  life.  From 
1860  until  his  death  he  was  recognized  by  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  dwelt  as  the  most  fitting  expo- 
nent of  its  feeling  on  all  occasions  of  public  joy  or 
sorrow.  After  the  death  of  Edward  Everett,  on  the 
15th  of  January,  1865,  he  would  undoubtedly  have 
been  regarded  by  many  good  judges  as  having  suc- 
ceeded to  his  place  as  the  foremost  orator  of  the 
Commonwealth. 

The  events  of  the  year  1860  satisfied  Mr.  Bullock 
of  the  hopelessness  of  any  further  attempt  to  com- 
promise the  differences  between  Slavery  and  Free- 
dom. The  purpose  of  strenuous  resistance  to  the 
further  encroachments  of  the  Slave  Power,  at  what- 
ever risk  and  whatever  cost,  which  had  been  grow- 
ing stronger  and  stronger  in  New  England  since 
185G,  had  at  length  taken  full  possession  of  the  great 
Middle  States  and  of  the  Northwest.  The  conven- 
tion which  nominated  Lincoln  was  controlled  by  a 
spirit  determined  to  yield  no  further  to  threats  of 
disunion. 

The  Democratic  party  had  split  in  two.  The  dele- 
gations of  eight  Southern  States  had  withdrawn  from 
its  national  convention  at  Charleston.  They  had 
demanded  of  the  followers  of  Douglas,  who  had  been 
the  leader  in  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
what  Yancey  of  Alabama  termed  "  an  advanced  step 
in  the  vindication  of  Southern  rights."  Douglas  and 
his  supporters,  while  indifferent  to  Slavery,  begged 


XX  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

in  vain  that  their  Southern  associates  should  not 
"  take  a  position  which  will  be  absolute  ruin  to  us 
when  we  return  to  our  constituents."  The  election 
of  Lincoln  by  a  minority  of  the  voters  of  the  country 
was  rendered  certain  by  this  disunion.  It  became 
apparent  that  compromise  and  postponement  of  the 
issue  between  Slavery  and  Freedom  were  at  an  end. 

The  sentiment  of  Massachusetts,  of  course,  was 
uncompromising  in  its  support  of  the  position  of  the 
national  Republican  party.  Mr.  Bullock  was  in  full 
accord  with  that  sentiment.  He  favored  the  elec- 
tion of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  the  nomination  of  John  A. 
Andrew,  the  representative  of  the  more  radical  anti- 
slavery  men,  as  candidate  for  Governor.  He  was 
himself  elected  to  the  House  of  Representatives  of 
Massachusetts  from  Ward  8  of  the  city  of  Worcester. 

The  Legislature  met  on  the  first  Wednesday  in 
January,  1861.  The  cloud  of  the  approaching  civil 
war  was  already  visible  to  clear-sighted  observers, 
by  none  more  plainly  seen  than  by  the  prophet's 
eye  of  John  A.  Andrew. 

Li  his  inaugural  address  Governor  Andrew  clearly 
indicates  his  belief  that  war  was  imminent.  On  the 
day -of  his  inauguration  he  despatched  confidential 
messengers  to  the  governors  of  each  of  the  New  Eng- 
land States,  to  urge  preparation,  and  to  concert  meas- 
ures for  joint  action.  January  16,  General  Order 
No.  4  was  issued,  requiring  the  commanders  of  all 
military  companies  "to  examine  with  care  their  rolls, 
with  a  view  of  ascertainins:  whether  there  are  men 
in  their  commands  who  from  age,  physical  defects, 
business,  or  family  causes  may  be  unable  or  indis- 


MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK.  XXI 

posed  to  respond  at  once  to  the  orders  of  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief made  in  response  to  the  call  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  that  they  may  be 
forthwith  discharged ;  so  that  their  places  may  be 
filled  by  men  ready  for  any  public  exigency  which 
may  arise,  whenever  called  upon." 

Under  the  same  inspiration  the  Legislature  and  the 
executive  officers  of  the  State  set  about  preparing 
for  the  impending  danger.  But  there  were  many 
persons  still  incredulous.  Newspapers  of  wide  circu- 
lation, conservative  and  timid  citizens,  disappointed 
politicians  of  all  parties,  threw  ridicule  on  what  they 
termed  the  foolish  panic  of  the  Governor.  If  Mr. 
Bullock,  whose  sympathies  and  affiliations  had  been 
for  so  many  years  with  the  political  opponents  of 
Andrew,  and  who  might  have  been  not  unnaturally 
looked  to  as  his  rival  and  competitor  for  future  hon- 
ors, had  seen  fit  to  throw  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the 
courageous  policy  of  the  State  administration,  great 
embarrassment  and  public  injury  might  have  been 
the  result.  But  Mr.  Bullock  zealously  and  abl}^  sup- 
ported the  great  War  Governor.  He  was  chairman 
of  the  Judiciary  Committee,  and,  as  such,  the  rec- 
ognized leader  of  the  House.  With  his  friend  and 
townsman,  Attorney-General  D  wight  Foster,  of  whom 
Governor  Andrew  said  he  was  "  full  of  the  fire  and 
hard-working  zeal  of  Massachusetts,"  he  w^as  the 
organ  of  the  patriotism  and  energy  of  Worcester  at 
the  seat  of  Government. 

Fort  Sumter  was  fired  upon  on  the  12th  of  April. 
The  Sixth  Massachusetts  were  attacked  by  an  en- 
raged mob,  on  their  passage  through  Baltimore,  on 


xxil  MEMOIR  OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

the  19tli  of  April.  The  Legislature  had  adjourned, 
and  later  was  reassembled  in  extra  session  on  the 
14th  of  May.  Mr.  Bullock  was  chairman,  on  the 
part  of  the  House,  of  the  special  committee  to  whom 
the  address  of  the  Governor,  with  its  accompanying 
documents,  was  referred.  He  reported  the  "  Resolves 
concerning  the  present  Crisis,"  which  were  adopted 
by  the  Legislature. 

The  State  was  foremost  among  the  loyal  States 
in  the  promptness  with  which  she  pressed  her  soldiers 
to  the  front,  and  Worcester  County  was  behind  no 
other.  Mr.  Bullock  was  fully  penetrated  with  the 
spirit  of  the  time,  and  his  eloquent  voice  spoke  the 
feelino;  which  was  in  the  hearts  of  the  whole  com- 
munity.  On  Tuesday  evening,  April  16,  there  was 
a  mass  meeting  of  the  citizens  of  Worcester  to  take 
action  for  the  equipment  of  the  volunteer  militia  of 
the  city.  Mr.  Bullock  made  a  stirring  speech  in 
which  he  declared  :  "  Under  no  circumstances  will 
there  be  a  yielding  to  submission  and  disgrace.  Bet- 
ter that  the  earth  should  ingulf  us  than  to  yield  our 
capital  to  the  rebels  who  would  seize  it." 

August  23,  he  presented  the  colors  to  the  Twenty- 
first  Regiment  in  an  admirable  speech.  On  the  14th 
of  October  a  great  war  meeting  filled  Mechanics'  Hall 
to  overflowing  in  aid  of  the  formation  of  the  Twenty- 
fifth  Regiment,  which  was  called,  distinctively,  "  the 
Worcester  Regiment."  At  this  meeting  Mr.  Bullock 
made  a  speech  which  we  might  well  be  content  to  send 
down  to  the  most  remote  posterity  as  a  most  beauti- 
ful and  adequate  expression  of  the  spirit  of  the  time. 

A  few  days  later,  on  the  departure  of  the  Twenty- 


MEMOIR   OF  ALEXA.NDER   H.    BULLOCK.  XXIU 

fifth  for  the  front,  he  presented  to  Colonel  Sprague, 
an  officer  than  whom  no  braver  or  abler  left  Massa- 
chusetts for  the  field,  a  horse,  the  gift  of  a  few  friends, 
in  a  speech  of  great  eloquence  and  beauty.  The 
value  of  these  speeches  was  very  great.  He  said,  in 
his  speech  at  the  great  war  meeting  of  October  14  : 
"  All  hearts  are  as  one,  palpitating  with  a  common 
hope,  melted  together  with  an  intensity  of  patriot- 
ism that  comes  only  from  the  baptism  of  blood.  The 
guns  which  were  levelled  at  Fort  Sumter,  levelled  all 
distinctions  of  party,  and  loyal  men  everywhere  are 
brothers." 

But  that  this  was  to  so  great  degree  true,  was  due 
to  the  fact  that  representatives  of  the  wealth  and 
conservatism  of  the  community  were  inspired  by  the 
same  loyalty  and  patriotism  which  stirred  the  popu- 
lar heart.  Mr.  Bullock  was  at  that  time  one  of  the 
wealthy  men  of  Worcester.  "■  Bring  on  your  tax- 
bills  and  send  out  the  regiment,"  he  cried  ;  and  in 
the  same  speech,  "  Every  man  or  woman  who  has 
an^^thing  to  spare  owes  it  to  the  country,  this  month 
and  next,  to  place  a  portion  of  it,  at  least,  in  the 
public  stocks.  If  the  Government  is  saved,  these 
will  be  our  best  estate ;  if  the  Government  is  lost, 
these  will  be  worth  more  than  anything  else,  for  we 
can  bequeath  them  to  our  descendants  as  memories 
of  our  fidelity.  Every  dollar  invested  for  the  Gov- 
ernrtient  will  transcend  in  appreciation  the  annals  of 
usury ;  and  even  if  it  were  lost,  it  will  be  riches  to 
the  losers,  for  it  would  be  recoined  in  the  wealth  and 
treasure  of  the  heart." 

The  sound  of  the  first  gun  fired  upon  Sumter  was 


XXIV  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

heard  by  a  people  to  whom  the  real  sorrow  and  sacri- 
fice of  w^ar  had  been  unknown  for  eighty  years.  It 
was  expected  by  most  of  those  who  enhsted  or  urged 
enhstment  in  the  spring  and  summer  of  1861,  that 
a  few  months  would  end  the  struggle.  That  Avas  the 
year  of  patriotic  enthusiasm.  The  year  1862  and  the 
two  years  which  followed  tested  the  greater  quality  of 
steadfastness  in  the  endurance  of  a  sacrifice  of  which 
the  people  of  Massachusetts  then  fully  appreciated 
the  extent.  There  was  hardly  a  family  without  its 
representative  in  the  armies  about  Washington  and 
Richmond. 

Mr.  Bullock  was  re-elected  to  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives in  the  fall  of  1861.  When  the  Legisla- 
ture organized  in  January,  1862,  he  was  elected 
Speaker,  receiving  every  vote  cast.  The  duties  of 
the  Speaker  of  course  were  not  consistent  with  that 
prominent  share  in  controlling  and  discussing  the 
business  of  the  House  which  he  had  taken  in  the 
previous  year.  But  he  left  the  chair  to  advocate  a 
bill  for  levying  a  special  war  tax  of  $1,800,000,  a  tax 
more  than  double  any  single  State  tax  ever  known 
to  the  people  of  Massachusetts.  He  did  not  seek  to 
disguise  the  magnitude  of  the  expenditure  Avhich 
was  to  be  demanded  of  the  people  by  the  State  and 
National  Governments.  He  declared  that  it  was  un- 
doubtedly far  in  advance  of  any  example  of  which 
we  have  historical  information.  But  he  exhibited 
with  great  clearness  the  reason  for  beheving  that 
the  burden  was  one  which  a  single  generation  could 
easily  remove.  The  speech  is  a  masterpiece  of  clear 
and  comprehensive  statement,  calculated  to  remove 


MEMOIR   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK.  XXV 

from  the  public  mind  all  unreasonable  apprehension 
of  financial  disturbance  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
impress  the  necessity  of  severe  retrenchment  of  all 
avoidable  expenditure,  on  the  other. 

The  Legislature  cordially  supported  Andrew  through 
the  entire  war ;  and  in  this  support  no  man  was  more 
cordial  than  Mr.  Bullock,  as  his  re-election  to  the 
office  of  Speaker  in  1863  by  every  vote  but  three, 
and  in  18C4  and  1865  by  a  unanimous  vote,  bears 
witness.  He  had  opposed  the  resolutions  which 
passed  the  Senate,  and  but  for  an  adjournment  would 
have  passed  the  House,  at  the  special  session  of  May, 
1861,  instructing  the  Senators  and  requesting  the 
Representatives  in  Congress  "  to  use  their  utmost 
efforts  to  secure  the  repeal  of  any  and  all  laws  which 
deprive  any  class  of  loyal  subjects  of  the  Government 
from  bearing  arms  for  the  common  defence."  This 
was  meant  to  remove  all  obstacles  to  the  enlistment 
of  colored  soldiers.  Mr.  Bullock  avowed  "  his  wil- 
lingness to  remove  every  vestige  of  disability  from 
the  colored  citizens,  and  in  a  proper  time  he  hoped 
to  see  it.  This  was  not  the  time.  Twenty-three 
sovereign  States  are  a  unit  in  this  conflict.  He  who 
would  now  cast  a  firebrand  among  the  ranks  of  the 
United  North  and  West  and  the  Border  States  will 
initiate  a  calamity  the  extent  of  which  will  be  ap- 
palling and  inconceivable." 

But  in  the  summer  of  1862  he  was  ready  to  strike 
at  slavery  as  alike  the  cause  and  tlie  support  of  the 
Rebellion.  On  the  11th  of  July,  1862,  while  pre- 
senting a  flag  to  the  Thirty-fourth  Regiment,  he 
said  :  — 


XXVi  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER  H.    BULLOCK. 

"  We  hail  the  assurances  that  come  from  the  capital  that 
the  Government  and  the  people  begin  to  think  alike.  The 
Government  is  in  earnest  in  the  war.  The  Government  is 
resolved  that  henceforth  whatever  obstacles  stand  in  the 
way  of  the  unity  of  this  people,  whether  they  be  batteries  of 
cannon  or  barricades  of  plantations,  they  must  be,  and  they 
shall  be,  swept  away.  As  slavery  idealizes,  vitalizes,  inten- 
sifies, the  armies  of  the  South,  so  let  freedom  idealize,  vital- 
ize, intensify,  the  armies  of  the  North.  To  renationalize  the 
liberty  of  the  Constitution,  I  understand  to  be  one  of  the 
inevitable  accompaniments  of  this  war." 

Mr.  Sumner  had  from  the  beginning  been  nrgent 
in  his  demand  that  the  policy  of  emancipation  should 
be  adopted  by  the  Administration.  From  the  21st 
of  April,  1801,  when  he  gave  to  Major  Devens's 
battalion  on  their  way  through  New  York  to  the 
scene  of  action,  the  watchwords,  ^'  Massachusetts,  the 
Constitution,  and  Freedom,"  from  the  fall  of  the  same 
year  when  he  made  to  the  Republican  Convention 
of  Massachusetts  the  speech  entitled  ''  Emancipation 
our  best  Weapon,"  he  had  everywhere  pressed  this 
policy.  He  was  impatient  of  the  President's  desire 
to  conciliate  the  Border  States. 

In  his  great  speech  at  the  Cooper  Institute,  New 
York,  November  27,  1861,  on  "The  Rebellion,  its 
Origin  and  Mainspring,"  he  declared :  "  The  enemy  is 
before  you ;  nay,  he  comes  out  in  ostentatious  chal- 
lenge, and  his  name  is  Slavery.  You  can  vindicate 
the  Union  only  by  his  prostration." 

In  his  eulogy  on  Baker,  December  11,  1861,  he  de- 
nounced in  the  Senate  "  that  fatal  forbearance,  through 
which  the  weakness  of  the  Rebellion  is  changed  into 
strength,  and  the  strength  of  our  armies  is  changed 
into  weakness." 


MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.  BULLOCK.  XXVll 

Andrew  was  in  entire  accord  with  Sumner,  and 
urged  the  immediate  enlistment  of  the  negro  into 
the  armies  of  the  United  States.  The  President,  for 
reasons  now  well  known,  delayed  the  proclamation  of 
emancipation  until  events  should  demonstrate  its 
military  necessity  to  the  large  majority  of  the  people 
of  the  North.  Many  persons  believed  that  Lincoln 
meant  to  carry  through  the  war  solely  for  the  restora- 
tion of  the  authority  of  the  Union  and  the  Consti- 
tution as  they  were  when  it  began,  leaving  the 
condition  of  the  colored  race  unaffected.  They  saw 
in  this  apparent  difference  between  the  President  and 
Sumner  and  Andrew  their  opportunity  to  drive  them 
and  the  opinion  they  represented  from  political 
power  in  Massachusetts.  The  strength  and  bitter- 
ness of  this  purpose  can  hardly  be  credited  now.  At 
a  great  Union  meeting  in  New  York  a  distinguished 
speaker  said  that,  "  in  his  opinion,  the  next  man  who 
walked  up  the  scaffold  after  Jefferson  Davis  should 
be  Charles  Sumner." 

The  correspondent  of  a  Boston  newspaper  declared  : 
"  If  Sumner  is  re-elected  it  may  not  be  convenient  for 
him  to  pass  through  New  York."  Governor  Claflin, 
then  President  of  the  Senate,  declared,  as  early  as 
18G1,  writing  to  Mr.  Sumner:  — 

"  The  truth  is,  there  is  a  desperate  effort  under  the  surface 
to  drive  you  from  the  Senate  next  winter ;  and  if  nothing  is 
done,  it  is  feared  by  many  that  the  Conservative  force  will 
get  so  strong  as  to  drive  both  you  and  Andrew  from  your 
seats." 

This  feeling  found  abundant  utterance  in  the  press 
of  Massachusetts  during   the   gloomy   summer  and 


XXVlll  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

autumn  of  1862.  A  call  was  put  forth  for  a  People's 
Convention  at  Faneuil  Hall,  October  7,  whose  main 
object  was  to  defeat  the  election  of  Mr.  Sumner,  to 
which  many  persons  of  great  influence  and  undoubted 
loyalty,  who  had  till  then  acted  with  the  Republi- 
can party,  gave  their  sanction.  It  was  a  period  of 
dulness  and  gloom. 

The  advance  upon  Richmond  by  McClellan,  almost 
every  mile  of  which  had  been  a  separate  battle-field, 
the  retreat,  the  change  of  base,  the  pursuit  by  Lee, 
the  desperate  and  doubtful  battle  of  Antietam,  had 
filled  nearly  every  household  in  Massachusetts  with 
mourning  for  its  dead. 

But  the  people  did  not  falter.  The  friends  of  Mr. 
Sumner  determined  to  make  the  issue  at  the 
Republican  State  Convention  held  at  Worcester 
on  the  10th  of  September.  Of  this  convention  Mr. 
Bullock  was  elected  president.  In  his  opening  ad- 
dress he  said  he  "  had  learned  many  things  during 
the  past  year,  one  of  which  was  that  African  slavery 
on  this  continent  is  so  intimately  connected  with  the 
war,  that  the  two  things  can  no  longer  be  considered 
apart." 

It  was  proposed  to  limit  the  resolutions  of  the  con- 
vention to  a  simple  pledge  to  support  the  President 
in  putting  down  the  Rebellion.  This  was  met  by  the 
counter  demand  for  an  expression  of  opinion  as  to 
the  policy  of  the  war,  and  that  it  was  "the  duty  of 
the  people  not  only  to  sustain  the  general  in  the 
field,  but  the  President  in  his  seat,  the  Governor  in 
his  chair,  and  above  all  the  legislator  in  his  duty." 

After   an   exciting   debate   and    much    dexterous 


MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK.  XXIX 

parliamentary  management,  the  whole  matter  was 
referred  to  a  committee  appointed  by  the  chair. 
President  Bullock  appointed  a  committee  in  which 
the  supporters  of  Sumner  were  in  the  majority. 
They  reported  resolutions  demanding  the  extermina- 
tion of  slavery,  approving  the  course  of  Mr.  Sumner 
nnd  commendino;  him  for  re-election.  These  resolu- 
tions  were  triumphantly  carried,  and  doubtless  repre- 
sented the  sentiment  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts, 
on  which  they  would  have  acted,  no  matter  what 
convention  or  what  official  power  had  stood  in  the 
way. 

But  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  came  on 
the  22d  of  September,  placing  the  Administration 
in  full  accord  with  Sumner  and  Massachusetts.  This 
act  inspired  with  new  confidence  the  loyalty  of  the 
Commonwealth.  The  language  of  determination 
and  endurance  was  now  mingled  with  that  of  hope 
and  exultation. 

Mr.  Bullock  was  among  the  foremost  to  give  ex- 
pression to  the  general  feeling.  He  presided  over 
an  immense  meetinof  held  in  Mechanics'  Hall  on  the 
17th  of  October,  which  was  addressed  by  Charles 
Sumner.  On  the  30th  of  the  same  month  he  ad- 
dressed another  great  meeting  in  the  same  place, 
which  was  presided  over  by  Mayor  Aldrich,  assisted 
by  a  hundred  vice-presidents.  His  speech  is  de- 
scribed, by  the  author  of  "  Worcester  in  the  War," 
as  "strong  in  thought  and  ablaze  with  patriotic  fire." 

He  was  elected  Speaker  again  in  January,  1863, 
receiving  every  vote  cast  except  three  for  Caleb 
Cushing.     The    description  which  Hawthorne  gives 


XXX  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

of  his  friend,  Franklin  Pierce,  may  well  be  applied  to 
him :  — 

"He  had  all  the  natural  gifts  that  adapted  him  for  the 
post, — courtesy,  firmness,  quickness  and  accuracy  of  judgment, 
and  a  clearness  of  mental  perception  that  brought  its  own 
regularity  into  the  scene  of  confused  and  entangled  debate ; 
and  to  these  qualities  he  added  whatever  was  to  be  attained 
by  a  laborious  study  of  parliamentary  rules." 

Mr.  Sumner  said  of  him  that  he  would  "  always  be 
thought  of  as  the  Speaker." 

The  successes  of  the  year  1863,  although  they  did 
not  end  the  Rebellion,  and  were  followed  by  many 
alternations  of  victory  and  defeat,  removed  from  the 
public  mind,  to  a  great  degree,  the  fear  of  national 
destruction.  Men  felt  they  were  engaged  in  a  gi- 
gantic war,  requiring  gigantic  efforts,  but  efforts  to 
which  the  republic  had  demonstrated  its  capacity. 

The  ordinary  occupations  of  life  went  on,  and  or- 
dinary topics  resumed  their  interest.  Mr.  Bullock 
delivered  an  address  before  the  alumni  of  Amherst 
College,  on  the  8th  of  July,  on  the  occasion  of  his 
relinquishing  the  chair  as  their  presiding  officer. 

He  was  elected  president  of  the  Worcester  Agri- 
cultm-al  Society  in  the  fall  of  1863,  and  delivered  the 
annual  address  before  that  society  on  "  Massachu- 
setts the  model  productive  State." 

In  the  year  1864  Mr.  Bullock  was  again  chosen 
Speaker  by  a  unanimous  vote.  In  taking  the  chair 
he  made  a  graceful  and  eloquent  address,  in  wdiich 
he  described  the  great  change  which  had  come  over 
the  public  feeling  within  twelve  months.  "  When 
our  predecessors  met  here  a  year  ago  the  sky  was 


MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK.  XXXI 

overcast.  Ill  fortune  at  home,  and  not  altogether 
good  omens  abroad,  impressed  our  hearts.  It  was  a. 
period  in  which  men  of  timid  counsels,  men  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  public  enemies,  availed  themselves 
of  the  general  gloom,  and  added  to  the  distraction 
and  discouragement  which  always  follow  military 
reverses." 

He  was  chosen  by  the  Republicans  of  the  State 
one  of  the  delegates  at  large  to  the  National  Con- 
vention, held  at  Baltimore,  in  June,  1864,  and  acted 
as  chairman  of  the  delegation.  When  the  time  ap- 
proached for  the  nomination  of  a  governor,  in  the 
autumn,  some  persons,  not  inconsiderable  in  numbers, 
desired  to  bring  him  forward  as  a  candidate.  But 
his  friend  and  neighbor.  Judge  Foster,  announced  to 
the  convention  that,  "^  some  weeks  ago,  by  his  own 
decisive  action,  the  name  of  Colonel  Bullock  had 
been  withdrawn,"  and  moved  the  renomination  of 
Governor  Andrew  by  acclamation,  which  was  carried. 

Mr.  Bullock  was  invited  by  the  convention  to  ad- 
dress them,  and  delivered  a  speech  of  great  vigor. 
His  summing  up  of  the  difference  between  the  two 
political  parties  shows  a  capacity  for  vigorous  blows 
rarely  equalled,  and  makes  it  apparent  that  his  fail- 
ure to  engage  in  the  angry  conflicts  of  debate  was 
not  owing  to  any  want  of  ability  for  defence  or 
aitacK. 

"And  now,  Mr.  President  and  fellow-citizens,  compare  our 
work  and  that  of  our  adversaries.  Compare  the  platform  of 
Baltimore  with  the  platform  of  Chicago.  I  am  not  going  to 
detain  you  with  a  recapitulation  of  the  characteristics  of 
either.     For  myself,  I  desire  to  go  on  appeal  to  the  American 


XXXll  MEMOm   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

people  with  no  other  issue  than  that  which  is  presented  by 
these  comparative  and  diverse  systems  of  political  ethics. 

"  The  one  breathes  undying  hostility  to  the  public  enemies, — 
the  other  inspires  hostility  only  against  its  own  Government ; 
the  one  swears  to  sustain  the  Government  in  quelling  the 
rebellion  by  force  of  arms,  —  the  other  conceals  the  fact  that 
there  is  any  rebellion  existing  at  all ;  the  one  sustains  the 
Government  in  the  fixed  and  irreversible  purpose,  determina- 
tion to  accept  no  compromise  and  to  offer  no  terms  of  peace 
not  based  upon  the  conquest  or  the  unconditional  surrender  of 
the  armies  of  treason,  —  the  other  abjectly  invites  any  com- 
promise whatsoever,  however  revolting  to  the  manhood  of 
the  nation,  and  opens  the  ghastly  doubt  whether  separation 
itself  should  not  be  accepted  as  the  price  of  armistice  and 
peace. 

"  The  Baltimore  Convention  resolves  that  the  national  safety 
demands  the  utter  and  complete  extirpation  of  slavery  from 
the  soil  of  the  republic ;  the  Chicago  Convention,  by  its 
acquiescence,  by  its  collateral  issues,  by  its  tone  and  temper, 
by  all  that  it  says,  by  all  that  it  does  not  say,  places  Southern 
Slavery  as  the  brightest  sun  in  our  coronet  of  empire,  and 
would  restore  that  dynasty,  which  before  the  war  was  a  rule 
of  unvarying  humiliation,  and  which,  if  now  replaced,  would 
be  a  reign  of  intolerable  despotism  and  disgrace. 

"  Your  delegates  at  Baltimore  offered  their  thanks  and  yours 
to  the  soldier  of  the  flag,  and  took  the  oath  to  stand  by  him 
unto  the  end,  to  the  last  of  their  treasure  and  of  their  hearts  ; 
the  delegates  of  Chicago  offer  their  sympathy  to  the  soldier 
in  the  one  hand,  and  in  the  other  hold  forth  to  him  a  welcome 
to  an  infamy  that  would  be  traditional  and  perpetual  here- 
after." 

From  the  time  of  the  appointment  of  Charles  Allen 
to  the  bench  in  1858,  and  of  the  removal  of  Judge 
Thomas  to  Boston,  Mr.  Bullock  was  the  chief  speaker 
at  all  great  public  gatherings  in  Worcester,  and  con- 


MEMOIR   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK.  XXXUl 

stantly  in  demand   througliout  the  Commonwealth, 
on  all  great  public  occasions. 

His  beautiful  eulogy  on  Everett,  delivered  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall,  January  18,  1865,  is  one  of  the  best  of 
these  occasional  productions.  He  gave  a  brief  but 
admirable  analysis  of  the  services,  of  the  power  as  an 
orator,  of  the  man  to  whose  place  he  was  him.self,  so 
far  as  any  man  succeeded  to  it,  to  succeed.  He 
showed  also  that  he  fully  appreciated,  what  is  not 
commonly  appreciated,  Mr.  Everett's  great  diplo- 
matic ability. 

On  the  day  following  the  death  of  Lincoln,  April 
15,  1865,  Mr.  Bullock  presided  over  the  vast  as- 
semblage which  gathered  in  Mechanics'  Hall.  The 
feeling  of  the  people  found  adequate  expression  on 
that  day  in  religious  services  only.  But  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  proclamation  of  President  Johnson,  June 
1st  was  devoted  to  funeral  honors  to  the  memory  of 
Lincoln.  Mr.  Bullock  was  selected  by  the  City 
Council  to  deliver  the  eulogy  before  the  people  of 
Worcester.  His  address,  published  in  this  volume, 
ranks  among  the  very  best  delivered  in  the  coun- 
try, and  will  hold  a  high  and  permanent  place  in 
literature. 

He  also  delivered  an  address  before  the  Massachu- 
setts Charitable  Mechanics'  Association  at  its  tenth 
exhibition,  on  September  20,  on  the  "  Relation  of  the 
Mechanic  Arts  to  Liberty  and  Social  Progress." 

Governor  Andrew's  work  was  finished.  The  Rebel 
capital  and  the  Rebel  armies  had  surrendered.  The 
discussion  of  policies  of  war  had  given  place  to  the 
discussion  of  policies  of  reconstruction.     There  was 


XXXIV  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

left  to  those  who  were  intrusted  with  administration 
in  Massachusetts  to  welcome  the  veteran  survivors 
and  victors  on  their  return,  to  build  monuments  to 
the  fallen,  to  pay  the  debt,  and  to  re-establish  the 
economies  that  belong  to  peace. 

In  anticipation  of  the  speedy  ending  of  the  war, 
Governor  Andrew  announced,  in  January,  1865,  his 
purpose  not  to  be  a  candidate  for  another  re-election. 
Mr.  Bullock  was  called  upon  to  succeed  him  by  the 
general  voice  of  the  Republicans  of  the  State.  He 
had  no  competitor  in  his  own  party.  Pie  was  unani- 
mously nominated  at  the  State  Convention  held  at 
Worcester  on  the  14th  of  September,  1865,  and  was 
elected  on  the  7tli  day  of  November,  over  General 
Couch,  by  a  very  large  majority  of  votes. 

Mr.  Bullock's  term  of  office  as  Governor  was  quiet 
and  uneventful.  He  favored  the  three  amendments 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  In  his 
■first  inauarural  ddress  he  declared  his  belief  that  the 
questions  of  slavery  and  secession  had  forever  been 
put  at  rest,  and  favored  the  speedy  restoration  to  the 
South  of  her  local  self-government,  insisting  that  it 
should  rest  on  the  free  choice  of  all  the  people,  and 
that  the  rights  of  the  freedmen  should  be  secured  by 
all  possible  guaranties. 

He  addressed  himself  at  once  to  the  task  of  bring- 
ing back  the  administration  of  the  Commonwealth  to 
its  old  ways. 

He  paid  a  tribute  to  the  victorious  soldiery  in  a 
passage  of  rare  beauty  and  eloquence,  which  the  sol- 
diers delight  to  remember,  and  which  has  taken  its 
place  in  the  school  books. 


MEMOIR   OF  ALEXANDER   H,    BULLOCK.  XXXV 

He  received  the  Twenty-first  and  Twenty-fifth 
regiments  on  their  return  from  the  war  with  affect- 
ing and  inspiring  addresses  of  welcome. 

A  most  trying  and  painful  duty  descended  to  him 
from  his  predecessor.  Edward  W.  Green,  the  post- 
master of  the  town  of  Maiden,  also  intrusted  by  the 
authorities  of  that  town  with  the  sale  of  school  books 
and  the  moneys  received  therefrom,  being  a  defiulter 
in  both  trusts,  had  murdered  the  teller  of  the  bank 
(a  boy  of  about  eighteen  years  of  age),  at  midday,  by 
shooting  him  through  the  head,  and  robbed  him  of 
about  five  thousand  dollars.  He  was  arrested,  and 
made  a  full  confession  and  was  indicted.  When 
arraigned  before  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  at  a 
term  held  by  a  single  judge,  after  being  informed  of 
liis  rights  and  of  the  effect  of  his  plea,  and  after  ad- 
vising with  able  and  experienced  counsel,  he  pleaded 
guilty  of  murder  in  the  first  degree.  The  presiding 
judge,  who  had  previously  consulted  with  all  his 
associates  on  the  proper  course  to  be  taken,  Avith 
their  approbation  and  concurrence,  received  the  plea 
and  sentenced  the  prisoner  to  be  executed. 

Murder  in  the  first  degree  alone  could  be  capitally 
punished  under  the  law.  The  statute  which  defined 
the  degrees  of  murder  enacted  also  that  the  degree 
of  murder  should  be  for  the  jury.  Upon  this  statute 
Governor  Andrew  doubted  whether  it  was  compe- 
tent for  the  court,  especially  when  held  by  a  single 
judge,  to  enter  judgment  against  a  prisoner  and 
award  sentence  of  death  upon  his  own  plea  of  guilty 
of  murder  in  the  first  degree ;  or  whether  they 
should  not  either  render  judgment  of  guilty  of  mur- 


XXXVl  MEMOIR   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

der  in  the  second   degree,  or  impanel  a  jury  to  de- 
termine the  question. 

He  submitted  this  question  to  the  Supreme  Court 
under  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution.  The  court 
repHed  that  the  provision  in  question  applied  only  to 
the  case  of  a  plea  of  guilty,  or  of  guilty  of  murder  in 
the  second  degree,  and  did  not  affect  proceedings  under 
the  statute  which  provides  that  "  a  person  indicted  for 
a  capital  crime  may  be  arraigned  before  the  court 
held  by  one  justice,  and  if  he  pleads  guilty,  such  court 
may  award  sentence  against  him  according  to  law." 

This  opinion  was  afterwards  reaffirmed  on  a  writ 
of  error  in  the  same  case.  Governor  Andrew's 
council  declined  to  recommend  a  reprieve  of  sen- 
tence, but  recommended  a  day  for  its  execution,  and 
again  in  the  following  year  renewed  their  refusal. 
Governor  Andrew  still  remained  unwillinoj  to  issue 
his  warrant  for  the  execution ;  and  Green,  who  had 
been  sentenced  April  25,  1864,  was  left  in  prison 
awaiting  executive  action  on  Governor  Bullock's 
accession,  in  January,  1866.  His  duty  was  a  very 
plain,  though  very  painful  one. 

In  discharging  it  he  encountered  much  vitupera- 
tion, and  was  compelled  to  resist  the  solicitations  of 
some  very  excellent  and  influential  citizens.  But  in 
a  clear  and  masterly  statement  he  pointed  out  to  the 
Council^  that  to  decline  to  execute  the  law  for  such 
reasons  would  be  to  invade  the  province  of  the 
Judiciary  by  the  Executive,  to  decide  a  question  be- 
longing under  the  Constitution  and  law  exclusively 
to  the  court,  and  would  also  put  it  in  the  power  of 
the  malefactor  to  escape  punishment  altogether,  by 


MEMOIR   OF  ALEXANDER   II,    BULLOCK.  XXXVll 

pleading  guilty  of  the  capital  offence,  the  court  hav- 
ing held  that  in  such  case  no  provision  for  a  jury 
trial  existed.  The  Council  concurred  with  the  Gov- 
ernor, and  the  law  took  its  course. 

Governor  Bullock  always  ftivored  leaving  to  the 
direct  action  of  the  people  the  decision  of  important 
questions  when  practicable.  He  vetoed  an  act  an- 
nexing Roxbury  to  Boston  because  it  did  not  provide 
for  submitting  the  question  to  the  people  of  the  two 
cities.  He  favored  leaving  the  question  of  sale  of 
liquor  to  be  determined  by  the  option  of  the  locali- 
ties affected. 

He  was  by  nature  averse  to  strife.  Probably  no 
man  of  his  time,  or  of  any  time,  so  conspicuous  in 
public  life  in  Massachusetts,  encountered  less  of  per- 
sonal controversy.  But  he  knew  well  how  to  pro- 
tect his  own  dignity  when  invaded,  as  was  shown  by 
ai;  encounter  with  the  House  of  Representatives  dur- 
ing the  session  of  1868. 

The  Governor  had,  as  authorized  by  the  Constitu- 
tion, permitted  a  bill  in  regard  to  the  sale  of  intoxi- 
cating liquors  which  had  been  the  subject  of  angry 
public  discussion,  to  become  a  law,  by  retaining  it 
more  than  five  days  without  his  signature.  He  had 
sent  a  message  to  the  Legislature  stating  his  reasons 
for  his  course,  which  the  House,  deeming  the  mes- 
sage a  departure  from  official  usage,  and  disturbed 
by  the  Governor's  attitude,  directed  to  be  returned 
to  him  by  its  committee. 

His  courteous  and  quiet  reply,  made  on  the  instant 
to  the  committee  when  it  waited  on  him  with  the 
communication,  showed  the  hand  of  steel  beneath  the 


XXXVm  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

glove  of  silk.     The  discomfited  committee  retired  to 
their  equally  discomfited  principals. 

Governor  Bullock's  administration,  as  has  been 
already  said,  was  an  uneventful  one.  It  was  a  time 
of  progress  and  prosperity.  The  unnatural  stimu- 
lant to  business,  caused  by  an  inflated  currency,  had 
not  vet  beo;un  to  show  its  evil  effects. 

The  South  was  resuming  its  ordinary  occupations, 
and  the  supply  of  its  wants  made  the  workshops  of 
Massachusetts  busy.  Succeeding  to  the  great  place 
which  Andrew  had  left  vacant  after  the  stormy  and 
exciting  days  whose  labors  and  anxieties  he  had  so 
fully  shared,  it  is  praise  enough  for  him  to  say  that 
he  was  able  and  ready  to  guide  the  people  of  the 
Commonwealth  in  their  return  to  the  paths  of  peace. 

In  addition  to  his  performance  of  his  proper  offi- 
cial duties,  he  delivered,  during  the  years  1866,  1867, 
and  1868,  many  public  addresses,  all  showing  his  ac- 
customed scholarship  and  beauty  of  finish. 

Mr.  Bullock  was  re-elected  for  the  3^ears  1867  and 
1868.  He  declined  re-election  in  the  autumn  of  the 
latter  year. 

AVhen  Mr.  Bullock  laid  down  the  office  of  Governor, 
in  Januarj^,  1869,  it  seemed  likely  that  a  long  career 
of  brilliant  national  public  service  was  before  him. 
He  was  not  yet  fifty-three  years  old.  He  was  in  the 
full  vigor  of  his  faculties,  both  of  bodv  and  mind. 
He  was  exempted  from  the  necessity  of  Libor  for 
support  of  his  household.  He  Avas  in  accord  with  the 
large  majority  of  the  people  of  his  State  on  the  great 
public  questions  of  the  immediate  past  and  the 
immediate   future.     His    reputation   was   without  a 


MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK.  XXxix 

stain.  He  had  an  attractive  and  elegant  manner. 
He  had  no  enemies.  He  was,  more  than  any  other 
of  the  men  conspicuous  in  his  own  party,  a  favorite 
with  his  pohtical  opponents.  His  extensive  histori- 
cal and  literary  studies  had  filled  his  mind  with 
stores  fitted  for  use  and  for  ornament. 

Above  all,  he  possessed,  bej'ond  any  of  his  living 
contemporaries,  that  rare  gift  of  eloquence  which 
always  has  been  and  always  will  be  a  passport  to  the 
favor  of  the  people  where  speech  is  free. 

But  the  honors  he  had  enjoyed  seemed  to  have 
filled  the  measure  of  his  amljition.  He  visited  Eu- 
rope in  18G9,  and  returned  to  devote  Inmself  to 
the  duties,  cares,  and  enjoyments  of  private  citizen- 
ship. He  was  not  an  uninterested  spectator  of  the 
great  j^ublic  events  of  the  period  of  reconstruction, 
of  the  funding  and  payment  of  the  public  debt,  of 
the  return  to  specie  payment,  and  the  overcoming, 
by  new  and  stricter  administrative  methods  and  an 
aroused  and  jealous  public  opinion,  the  tendency  to 
waste  and  corruption  which  jdways  follows  a  great 
war. 

But  he  gave  no  encouragement  to  the  suggestion 
made  from  influential  quarters  that  he  should  be  a 
candidate  for  public  office.  He  was  more  than  once 
requested  to  consent  to  be  a  candidate  for  Congress, 
but  refused. 

In  1874,  when  the  writer  had  publicly  signified  his 
desire  to  withdraw  from  the  representation  of  his  dis- 
trict, Mr.  Bullock  wrote  a  published  letter  declining 
to  be  a  candidate  for  a  succession  which  was  un- 
doubtedly within  his  reach. 


xl  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

On  the  5th  of  January,  1879,  the  writer  was 
authorized  by  President  Hayes  to  communicate  to 
Governor  Bullock  the  President's  desire  to  appoint 
him  to  the  English  Mission,  then  vacant.  The  fol- 
lowing is  his  reply  :  — 

Worcester,  Dec.  8,  1879. 

My  dear  Sir,  —  I  received  yesterday  your  favor  of  the  5th 
inst.,  in  which  you  kindly  inquire,  in  behalf  of  the  President, 
whether  I  would  undertake  the  Mission  to  England.  I  have 
felt  at  liberty  to  take  to  myself  twenty-four  hours  to  consider 
this  question,  and  I  now  apprise  you  of  the  conclusion  to 
which  my  reflection  has  with  much  reluctance  brought  me. 
I  am  compelled,  by  the  situation  of  my  family,  to  reply  that 
it  would  be  practically  impossible  for  me  to  accept  this 
appointment. 

I  particularly  desire  to  express  to  the  President  my  pro- 
found and  grateful  acknowledgment  of  the  high  distinction 
he  has  offered  to  confer  upon  me,  and  to  assure  him  of  my 
purpose  in  every  way  as  a  private  citizen  to  uphold  him  in 
his  wise  and  patriotic  adnrinistration  of  the  government. 

Your  communication  has  been,  and  will  continue  to  be, 
treated  by  me  as  confidential. 

I  remain,  with  great  respect  and  esteem. 

Truly  and  faithfully  yours, 

Alexander  H.  Bullock. 

The  Hon.  Geo.  F.  Hoar,  U.  S.  S. 

During  these  years,  however,  he  was  in  constant 
demand  ^s  an  orator  at  college  festivals,  by  literary 
societies  and  on  public  occasions  of  every  kind.  His 
contributions  to  this  class  of  literature  during  the 
last  twelve  years  of  his  life  are  of  great  variety  and 
value. 

The  speech  at  the  dedication  of  the  Soldiers'  Mon- 


MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER    II.    BULLOCK.  xli 

ument  in  AVorcester ;  the  address  on  "■  Intellectual 
Leadership  in  American  History,"  before  the  literary 
societies  of  Brown  University  ;  the  address  on  the 
Centennial  Situation  of  Woman,  delivered  June  22, 
1876,  at  Mt.  Holyoke  Seminary ;  his  speech  in  New 
York,  November  20,  1880,  at  the  unveiling  of  the 
statue  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  —  are  admirable  ex- 
amples of  his  power.  They  show  that  he  was  still 
growing. 

The  quality  of  his  style  of  thought  and  ex- 
pression is  nowhere  better  exhibited  than  in  the 
paper  read  before  the  Antiquarian  Society  April  27, 
1881,  entitled  "  Centennial  of  the  Massachusetts 
Constitution." 

After  Governor  Bullock's  last  return  from  Europe, 
in  1880,  he  was  disposed  to  yield  to  the  earnest  de- 
sire of  his  townsmen  that  he  should  take  a  large  share 
in  the  management  of  the  business  institutions  which 
had  become  so  great  and  important.  The  experi- 
ence of  some  other  communities  of  a  kind  from  which 
we  had  not  been  altogether  exempt  had  taught  us 
that  there  is  no  safety  for  property  but  in  the  char- 
acter and  fidelity  of  those  who  are  intrusted  with  its 
manas^ement. 

Mr.  Bullock  was  conspicuous  for  excellent  judg- 
ment in  the  administration  of  business  affairs.  The 
community  felt  that  any  institution  was  safe  which 
could  secure  his  personal  supervision.  He  undertook 
responsibilities  of  this  kind  which  pledged  him  to  a 
life  of  great  labor  and  care.  He  was  chosen  presi- 
dent of  the  Worcester  County  Institution  for  Savings, 
director  in  the  Worcester  National  Bank,  president 


xlii  MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

of  the  State  Mutual  Life  Assurance  Companj^,  and 
chairman  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  Sinkino;  Fund 
of  the  City  of  Worcester,  and  of  the  Financial  Com- 
mittee of  the  Trustees  of  Amherst  College. 

Every  man  felt  that  the  invested  property  of 
Worcester  was  more  valuable  by  an  appreciable  per- 
centage in  consequence  of  his  consent  to  give  to  it 
the  aid  of  his  sound  judgment  and  the  security  of  his 
integrity. 

These  hopes  were  doomed  to  be  disappointed. 
Governor  Bullock,  as  it  has  been  since  disclosed,  had 
for  some  time  been  conscious  of  symptoms  which  had 
led  him  to  apprehend  that  a  sudden  termination  of 
his  life  was  not  improbable.  He  had  put  his  affairs 
in  order.  He  had  suffered  somewhat  from  indii>:es- 
tion,  and  had  been  careful  as  to  diet  and  exercise,  but 
made  no  other  change  in  his  daily  habits. 

On  the  17th  day  of  January,  1882,  in  the  after- 
noon, he  went  down  street  and  visited  some  of  the 
offices  where  he  was  in  the  habit  of  calling;.  He  was 
returning  home,  and  had  just  passed  the  corner  of 
Chestnut  Street,  on  his  way  up  Elm  Street,  when  a 
young  man  who  was  walking  beside  him,  saw  him 
turn  suddenly,  drop  his  cane,  and  seize  the  railing  of 
the  fence  as  if  for  support.  Almost  immediately  he 
threw  himself  backward,  and  was  prevented  from 
falling  by  the  young  man  at  his  side,  Avho  asked  if  he 
was  hurt.  He  made  no  answer,  and  neither  spoke 
nor  gave  any  sign  of  consciousness  afterward. 

He  was  taken  into  the  house  of  Mr.  C.  W.  Smith. 
Two  physicians  arrived  almost  instantly,  but  life  was 
extinct. 


MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER    H.    BULLOCK.  xliii 

His  death  caused  a  severe  shock,  not  only  in 
Massachusetts,  but  throughout  the  country.  The 
"  Worcester  Spy,"  of  next  morning,  says :  — 

"  It  was  confidently  hoped  that  in  the  full  and  rich  ma- 
turity of  his  powers,  unvexed  by  cares  or  ambition,  he  would 
continue  for  many  years  an  ornament  and  honor  to  the 
city,  serving  his  neighbors  by  his  counsels,  giving  strength 
and  credit  to  our  financial  institutions  by  his  experience  in 
affairs  and  the  trust  which  his  name  justly  inspired,  and 
employing  his  leisure  with  those  studies  in  which  he  de- 
hghted  and  which  he  made  so  fruitful  in  historical  research, 
in  wide  suggestion,  in  eloquent  warning  and  stimulus  to 
high  and  heroic  action. 

"  Leisure  so  employed  was  spent  in  the  public  service,  and 
this  was  the  life  which  he  had  planned  for  his  declining  years. 
But  the  end  has  come  with  startling  suddenness.  And 
though  the  shock  is  painful,  we  cannot  doubt  that  for  him  it 
is  better  so.  We  shall  miss  his  familiar  figure  in  our  streets ; 
his  absence  will  make  a  gap  hard  to  fill  in  the  direction  of 
many  local  institutions.  We  shall  lack  an  eloquent  exponent 
of  the  popular  emotion  on  occasions  of  public  rejoicing  or 
sorrow.  His  counsels  will  be  wanting  in  public  exigencies. 
But  he  has  left  behind  him  the  memory  of  great  trusts 
worthily  discharged,  of  opportunities  for  usefulness  well  im- 
proved, of  a  private  life  honorable,  beautiful,  and  without  a 
stain." 

There  was  nowhere,  it  is  believed,  a  dissenting 
voice  from  this  judgment.  This  memoir  has  been 
designed  only  as  a  sketch,  necessarily  imperfect,  of 
the  public  life  and  character  of  its  subject,  and  of 
those  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  which  made, 
that  life  one  of  so  great  value  in  its  generation.  Mr. 
Bullock's  refined  and   delicate   nature  found,  as  his 


xliv  MEMOIR  OF  ALEXANDER  H,   BULLOCK. 

life  advanced,  its  most  congenial  atmosphere  within 
the  walls  of  his  home,  and  led  him  to  shrink  more  and 
more  from  the  rough  strifes  of  politics.  He  delighted 
in  days  spent  in  literary  pursuits  in  his  library,  and 
in  evenings  of  hospitable  welcome  to  neighbors, 
friends,  and  strangers.  His  strong  domestic  affections 
found  most  abundant  satisfaction  in  his  own  family 
circle,  "  where,"  says  a  near  neighbor  and  intimate 
friend,  "  his  home  life  diffused  all  around  it  an  influ- 
ence and  charm,  and  by  its  high  example  elevated 
the  standard  of  the  domestic  and  moral  life  of  a 
whole  community." 

He  was  stainless,  wise,  patriotic,  fit  to  be  trusted 
with  the  administration  of  great  interests,  public  or 
private.  He  was  a  lover  of  scholarship.  He  had 
the  ear  of  the  people  during  a  time  of  great  peril 
and  trial.  He  never  gave  it  dishonorable  counsel, 
or  uttered  a  word  which  would  debase  or  degrade 
it. 

The  place  of  the  orator  in  a  free  state  will  ever  be 
dignified  and  honorable.     There  is  no  artist  who  can 

o 

give  greater  or  purer  delight  than  this.  A  town,  or 
city,  or  state  is  very  human.  In  sorrow  it  must 
utter  its  cry  of  pain  ;  in  victory,  its  note  of  triumph. 
As  great  events  pass,  it  must  pronounce  its  judg- 
ment. ^  Its  constant  purpose  must  be  fixed  and  made 
more  steadfiist  by  public  expression.  It  must  give 
voice  to  its  love,  and  its  approbation,  and  its  condem- 
nation. It  must  register  the  high  and  low  water 
mark  of  its  tide,  its  rising  and  sinking  in  heat  and 
cold. 

This  is  the   office  which  Governor  Bullock,  from 


MEMOIR   OF   ALEXANDER   II.   BULLOCK.  xlv 

1860  until  his  death,  performed  for  the  community 
in  which  he  dwelt.  The  camerca  of  his  delicate  pho- 
tography has  preserved  for  future  generations  what 
passed  in  the  soul  of  ours,  in  the  times  that  tried 
the  souls  of  men. 

GEORGE   F.    HOAR. 


ADDRESSES 


OF 


ALEXANDER  H.  BULLOCK. 


ADDRESSES 


OF 


ALEXANDER    H.    BULLOCK. 


SPEECH   AT  A   WAR   MEETING, 

to  aid  and   encourage    the    formation    of   the  third   worcester 
county  regiment,  at  mechanics'  hall,  oct.  14,  1861. 

Mr.  Mayor  and  Fellow-Citizens  : 

If  I  had  much  to  say,  or  if  this  were  any  ordinary  occasion, 
I  should  deem  it  expedient  to  conciliate  you  by  apology. 
But  the  able  and  excellent  remarks  of  our  friend,  the  Sena- 
tor, —  himself  the  commander  of  regiments,  —  have  rendered 
my  duty  absolutely  a  brief  one,  and  the  exercise  of  your 
patience  comparatively  easy. 

The  objects  of  the  meeting  appear  to  me  half  accomplished 
if  we  apprehend  the  magnitude  of  the  national  crisis.  This 
presence  is  itself  an  illustration  of  the  exigency  which  sum- 
mons us.  This  attendance,  these  cheering  countenances,  we 
have  seen  here  before,  when  the  hall  was  lighted  and  its 
arches  echoed  for  political  success  and  party  victories.  But 
this  bond  and  tie  of  unity,  in  which  all  hearts  are  as  one, 
palpitating  with  a  common  hope,  melted  together  with  an 
intensity  of  patriotism  that  comes  only  from  the  baptism  of 
blood,  —  this  betokens  another  era  and  a  new  consecration. 
The  contests,  successes,  defeats,  and  illuminations  of  the  past 
are  extinguished.  The  whole  scene,  all  the  thoughts  and 
diversities  of  men,  have  been  changed  in  an  hour.     The  guns 


2  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

wLicli  were  levelled  at  Fort  Sumter  levelled  all  distinctions  of 
party,  and  loyal  men  everywhere  are  brothers.  We  are 
struoylino-  for  national  life.  The  nation  itself  is  in  arms  to 
maintain  its  unity  and  government.  Hitherto  slumbering 
in  our  prosperity,  we  have  at  last  been  awakened  by  the 
shock  of  open  rebellion  to  contemplate  the  value  of  the 
Government,  and  the  necessity,  at  all  hazards  and  by  every 
conceivable  sacrifice,  of  rescuing  it  from  the  perils  which  are 
threatening  to  ingulf  it. 

The  meeting  is  called  of  "  all  who  are  in  favor  of  a  vigorous 
prosecution  of  the  war."  I  should  like  to  see  a  meeting  of  all 
who  are  not  in  favor  of  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war. 
Some  few  such  have  been  attempted  in  the  State  of  Connecti- 
cut, but  they  were  instantly  squelched  by  an  indignant  people. 
And^  sir,  what  citizen  is  not  in  favor  of  his  own  honor  and 
his  own  existence  ?  AVhat  citizen  is  base  enough  to  covet  for 
himself  prematurely  a  grave  so  disgraceful  that  the  worm 
which  should  prey  upon  his  body  would  be  purity  itself  iu 
comparison  with  the  heart  of  its  victim  ?  And  yet  such  a 
man  would  be  an  angel  of  light  in  comparison  with  him  who 
is  willing  that  this  Government  should  go  down  to  an  un- 
timely and  ignominious  tomb,  so  long  as  an  arm  or  a  dollar  is 
left  to  defend  it.  Any  doubt  about  a  vigorous  prosecution  of 
the  war  ?  Any  doubt  about  preserving  our  capital,  our  Union, 
our  liberty,  the  memories  of  the  grand  and  solemn  past, 
the  glories  of  the  present,  the  inheritance  of  our  children  ? 
Any  doubt  about  our  raising  another  regiment  from  the 
city  and  county  of  Worcester,  when  the  earth  everywhere 
is  trembling  under  men  who  are  uniting  their  hands  and 
measuring  their  tread  for  the  conflict  ?  Why,  sir,  at  the 
expression  of  such  hesitation,  methiuks  the  bones  of  old 
Jackson  are  already  reinvesting  themselves  with  the  habili- 
ments of  life,  and  preparing  to  burst  forth  from  his  bed  in 
his  own  dishonored  Tennessee  and  walk  forth  for  revenge 
among  us.  Are  we  hesitating  when  the  living  appeals  of 
Lincoln  and  the  dying  testimony  of  Douglas  are  stirring  up  a 


SPEECH   AT   A   WAR   MEETING.  3 

nation  of  volunteers  in  the  West  ?  The  blood  of  the  brave 
Lyon  is  crying  out  to  us  from  the  ground.  Our  own  sons  and 
brothers  are  already  in  the  field,  and  from  the  command  of 
the  gallant  Fremont,  and  Eosencranz,  and  Wool,  and  heroic 
young  McClellau,  they  are  caUing  to  us  for  help.  They 
can  defend  themselves  as  they  are,  but  that  is  not  enough. 
A  quarter  of  a  million  more  men  are  wanted  to  bear  the 
flag  into  every  inlet,  and  plant  it  upon  every  cape,  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Chesapeake  to  the  Mississippi ;  new  regi- 
ments are  wanted  to  penetrate  to  tlie  haunts  of  the  Union- 
loving  people  of  Tennessee  and  Xorth  Carolina  and  Virginia, 
to  carry  our  upholding  sympathies  to  them  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet,  and  to  extend  over  them  the  protection  of  the  Gov- 
ernment until  they  can  uphold  the  flag  on  their  own  soil. 
By  our  aid  they  can  and  shortly  will  do  it ;  without  our  helj-), 
timely  and  abundant,  all  may  be  lost. 

If  money  is  wanted,  it  must  be  had.  And  let  us  make  the 
beginning  to-night  by  pledging  our  faith  to  the  Government 
and  our  confidence  in  its  securities.  Some  of  our  banks  have 
alread}'  done  largely  and  well,  and  I  honor  their  managers  for 
the  action.  But  we  have  yet  to  bring  this  subject  to  our  own 
individual  consciousness  of  duty.  Every  man  or  won^an  who 
has  anything  to  spare  owes  it  to  the  country,  this  month  and 
next,  to  place  a  j)ortion  of  it  at  least  in  the  public  stocks.  If 
the  Government  is  saved,  these  will  be  our  best  estate ;  if  the 
Government  be  lost,  tliese  will  be  worth  more  than  anything 
else,  for  we  can  bequeatli  them  to  our  descendants  as  memo- 
rials of  our  fidelity !  If  we  cast  our  eye  over  the  lines  into 
the  dark  and  bloody  Confederacy,  we  behold  a  people  receiv- 
ing only  Confederate  bonds  for  one  of  the  richest  crops  of  the 
world ;  and  when  they  ask  whether  these  are  of  any  value, 
Mr.  Stephens  tells  them,  No,  if  they  shall  be  conquered,  but 
that  they  are  in  that  case  worth  as  much  as  anything  else  to 
them.  And  they  are  acting  heroically  up  to  the  injunction. 
Are  we  doing  so  well  ?  The  man  who  at  sucli  a  time  as  this 
withholds  his  surplus  cash  to  shave  a  note  or  to  pick  up  a 


4  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

choice  opportunity  out  of  somebody's  misfortune,  and  goes 
about  the  streets  with  a  bowed  head  croakinsf  and  shivering 
in  the  wind,  commend  to  go  to  his  closet  on  the  approaching 
day  of  humiliation  and  fast,  that  he  may  take  a  lesson  from 
the  woman  who  wasted  the  precious  ointment  upon  the  feet 
of  our  divine  Lord  and  Saviour.  She  was  saved ;  he,  if  he 
persist,  is  already  lost.  Every  dollar  invested  for  the  Govern- 
ment will  transcend  in  appreciation  the  annals  of  usury ;  and 
even  if  it  were  lost  it  would  be  riches  to  the  loser,  for  it 
would  be  recoined  in  the  wealth  and  treasure  of  the  heart. 
It  behooves  us  all  to  spare  something,  to  save  something,  for 
the  public  securities.  As  somebody  has  said,  it  will  prove  to 
be  the  silver  bullet  which  will  penetrate  the  heart  of  the 
rebellion. 

And  further  than  this,  Mr.  Mayor,  and  invoking  your  par- 
ticular attention  to  the  point,  I  have  the  confidenee  to  say 
that  if  it  be  necessary  that  any  money  should  be  raised  by  the 
city  of  Worcester  in  order  to  secure  the  speedy  enlistment  of 
the  new  regiment  under  Upton  and  Sprague,  it  must  he  had. 
If  I  could  see  this  matter  reduced  to  a  probable  alternative 
trembling  in  the  visible  scales,  —  at  the  one  end  of  the  beam 
the  question  of  sending  out  in  thirty  days  a  new  regiment 
from  the  city  and  county  of  Worcester,  and  at  the  other  end 
the  question  of  an  addition  of  thousands  of  dollars  to  the 
debt  and  taxes  of  the  city,  —  I  would  strike  the  balance  this 
instant,  and  as  one  citizen  and  one  tax-payer  say  to  you,  Bring 
on  your  tax  hills  and  send  out  your  regiment.  We  have  but 
just  begun  to  drop  the  plummet  to  the  depths  of  this  question. 
It  involves  the  issues  of  life  and  death.  Whatever  we  may 
be  called  on  to  contribute,  after  all,  it  is  only  giving  up  a  part 
for  the  preservation  of  the  whole.  And  if  all  the  treasure  of 
the  loyal  States  be  necessary  to  carry  this  war  against  treason 
to  its  consummation,  it  must  and  it  will  be  furnished ;  for  the 
great  stake,  the  Union,  is  M-orth  the  sacrifice.  Ah,  we  should 
be  a  generation  that  ought  to  covet  the  forgetfulness  of  all 
future  ages  if  we  could  be  willing  to  save  our  treasure  by 


SPEECH   AT   A   WAll   MEETING.  5 

losing  our  Government,  carrying  to  our  graves,  if  it  were 
possible,  an  influence  which  had  cost  us  the  loss  of  our  own 
self-respect  and  the  scorn  and  contempt  of  our  children  I 

And  as  lives  are  necessary,  they,  too,  must  he  freely  offered. 
The  soldier  understands  it.  The  feet  of  armies  tread  upon 
the  margin  of  the  dark  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.  And 
yet  —  such  is  the  order  of  war,  the  experience  of  nations  — 
the  good  and  watchful  providence  of  God  brings  most  in 
safety  away.  Some  must  needs  enter  within  the  portals. 
But  what  is  death,  at  the  post  of  duty,  in  defence  of  our 
country,  in  the  cause  of  liberty,  with  the  flag  of  our  country 
for  a  winding-sheet,  and  the  assurance  of  a  nation's  grati- 
tude ?  So  slept  the  brave  defender  of  Missouri,  and  awoke  to 
immortal  fame.  So  sleeps  every  true  soldier  who  falls  under 
his  flag. 

"  There  is  a  tear  for  all  that  die, 

A  mourner  o'er  the  humblest  grave  ; 
But  nations  swell  the  funeral  crj', 
And  freedom  weeps  above  the  brave. 

"  For  them  is  sorrow's  purest  sigh 
O'er  ocean's  lieaving  bosom  sent. 
lu  vain  their  bones  unburied  lie  ; 
All  earth  becomes  their  monument. 

"  A  tomb  is  theirs  on  every  page, 
An  epitaph  on  every  tongue  ; 
The  present  hours,  the  future  age, 
.  Nor  them  bewail,  to  them  belong. 

"  A  theme  to  crowds  that  knew  them  not. 
Lamented  by  admiring  foes, 
Who  would  not  share  their  glorious  lot  ? 
Who  would  not  die  the  death  they  chose  ? " 

I  conclude  that  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war  is  to  us  a 
political  choice  of  duty  and  patriotism,  but  it  is  also  our 
necessity.  The  suggestion  of  peace  at  the  present  stage  of 
the  conflict  is  an  impossibility.  A  man  migiit  as  well  apply 
for  life  insurance  on  his  death-bed.  Who  and  where  is  he 
that  would  think  of  compromise  with  an  enemy  thundering 


6  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

at  the  gates  of  the  capital  ?  We  may  as  well,  once  for  all, 
bring  our  minds  to  a  contemplation  of  the  dread  reality.  We 
may  no  longer  talk  as  we  would  if  it  were  a  question  of 
averting  war.  We  are  in  civil  war  by  no  fault  or  act  or 
responsibility  of  ours.  We  are  in  civil  war,  and  somebody 
must  conquer,  and  somebody  else  must  be  conquered,  before 
there  can  be  a  possibility  of  peace.  The  great  historic  crisis 
has  been  cast  upon  us,  —  so  strange,  so  sad,  —  and  we  cannot 
avoid  it  nor  run  away  from  it.  It  is  Union,  the  whole  or 
none.  It  is  the  Government,  saved  or  lost.  It  is  the  national 
unity,  preserved  or  extinguished.  The  decrees  of  Providence, 
the  converging  lines  of  history,  the  Eevolution,  the  Confed- 
eration, the  Constitution,  and  seventy  years  of  happiness  and 
renown  under  it,  AVashington  and  Madison  and  Jackson,  all 
have  stamped  the  seal  upon  the  issue,  and  it  is — One  Country, 
One  Constitution,  One  Destiny.  It  is  this  or  nothing.  The 
republic  of  the  United  States  or  the  republic  of  the  Con- 
federate States  is  to  have  the  government  of  all  this  imperial 
domain.  To  this  alternative  has  it  come  at  last.  So  it 
appears  to  me  now. 

And  what  an  alternative  is  that !  The  movers  of  this 
rebellion  have  for  years  been  at  this  work  to  thrust  this 
Government  from  its  sphere  of  light,  and  send  it  like  a  baleful 
meteor  through  untravelled  paths  of  darkness,  to  transform 
gradually  but  surely  the  Constitution  of  the  American  Union, 
the  creation  of  liberty,  into  the  embodiment  of  some  of  the 
worst  features  of  a  feudal  and  barbarous  age,  with  only  the 
allurements  of  an  outward  prosperity  to  decorate  and  mystify 
the  appalling  sacrifice.  Failing  at  the  last  moment  to  attain 
their  objects  through  the  ordinary  machinery  of  popular  elec- 
tions, they  have  rushed  precipitately  to  the  accomplishment 
of  their  designs  in  another  way,  and  have  made  open  war 
upon  the  Government.  And  at  the  same  time  that  they  have 
been  doing  tliis,  they  have  also  organized  a  confederacy  of 
their  own,  and  promulgated  a  constitution  of  which  the  basis 
is  the  same  exclusive  and  barbarous  element  which  they  had 


SrEECII   AT   A    WAR   MEETING.  7 

aimed  to  incorporate  into  the  government  of  this  Union. 
You  know  what  it  is.  And  that  constitution,  founded  upon 
that  theory,  they  offer  to  us  as  the  measure  of  their  terms  of 
peace.  It  is  one  of  the  marvellous  disclosures  of  these  times 
that  these  architects  of  treason  appear  to  have  hoped  and 
expected  tliat  the  monstrous  doctrine  of  their  confederacy 
sliould  become  the  basis  of  a  reconstruction  of  the  American 
Union ;  and  that  we,  one  after  another,  like  lost  and  prodigal 
children  found  and  restored  again,  —  the  great,  free,  and 
sovereign  communities  of  the  North  and  the  West  and  the 
Centre, — would  in  due  time  be  found  knocking  at  the  door 
of  their  confederacy,  and  asking  permission  to  rest  under  the 
banner  of  the  palmetto  and  the  radiance  of  stars  that  never 
yet  were  lighted.  Pitiable  desperadoes !  Their  history  cannot 
be  fully  or  justly  written  until  science  shall  have  recon- 
structed the  classification  of  the  human  race.  Sucli  are  the 
terms  that  are  proposed.  By  accepting  them  we  can  have 
peace  before  another  nightfall. 

And  have  you  not  sometimes  thought  that  there  are  those 
at  the  North,  —  the  Lord  knows  thetn  if  they  exist  at  all, — 
in  Massachusetts  or  in  Connecticut,  who,  as  the  measure  of 
their  terms  of  surrender  and  peace,  would  accept  the  humilia- 
tion and  shame,  and  pass  under  the  yoke  ?  They  spend  the 
livelong  day  in  complaining  about  the  war,  and  liow  easily  it 
might  have  been  avoided,  and  in  hungerim;  and  thirsting 
after  peace,  when  there  are  no  parties  to  make  a  peace. 
Mark  them  well !  You  will  find  them  dissuading  their  neigh- 
bors from  enlisting  in  defence  of  their  country.  Let  such 
pass  at  an  early  day  witliin  the  enemy's  lines,  and  go  at  once 
to  work  at  his  guns  ;  then  no  longer  will  their  countenances 
or  their  tongues  deceive  or  betray  our  cause. 

But  let  us,  fellow-citizens,  rather  rally  around  the  patriotic 
and  resolute  and  incorruptible  President,  forgetful  of  all  party 
lines  which  have  hitherto  divided  us,  remembering  only  that 
he  is,  by  the  free  choice  of  the  American  people  and  in 
the  hands  of  Providence,  the  impersonation  of  the  last  hope 


8  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

of  constitutional  liberty  in  the  centuries.  Let  us  rather 
emblazon  over  our  dwellings  the  counsel  of  the  departed 
Douglas,  —  that  no  man  can  be  a  true  Democrat  who  is  not 
loyal  to  the  Union.  Let  us  rather  throw  open  our  hearts  to 
the  inspiring  admonitions  of  the  noble  and  eloquent  Holt, 
and,  with  our  lives  and  our  fortunes  in  our  hands,  exclaim  to 
the  President,  Use  them  freely,  use  them  boldly,  but  use  them 
successfully.  Let  us  rather  bestow  our  approving  sympathies 
upon  the  enthusiastic  commander  of  the  West,  who  is  organ- 
izing her  imperial  army  to  bear  the  standard  of  the  Union 
along  the  Father  of  Waters,  with  a  proclamation  floating  from 
the  eagle  of  every  regiment,  wdiich  will  make  it  no  fault  of 
his,  nor  of  ours,  nor  of  the  Government,  if  every  steamer  from 
New  Orleans  to  Cairo  shall  be  crowded  with  two-legged  con- 
trabands,  thick  as  bees  in  swarming  time.  Let  us  rather 
follow  with  our  prayers  and  benedictions  those  who  have 
gone  out  from  our  own  midst,  counting  not  their  own  lives 
dear  to  them  if  so  be  they  may  die  under  the  stars  and  stripes, 
and  leave  a  country  and  a  government  behind  them.  Let  us 
rather,  in  patriotic  competition  with  other  communities  of 
Massachusetts,  and  with  all  possible  despatch,  set  about  the 
enrolment  of  another  regiment  from  the  city  and  county  of 
Worcester,  who,  under  the  gallant  and  popular  officers  desig- 
nated by  the  Governor,  and  generously  mingling  the  currents 
of  Celtic  and  Teutonic  and  Yankee  blood,  shall  bear  the 
honor  of  the  Government  and  the  symbol  of  the  Union  to 
whatever  field  they  may  be  ordered.  Our  cause  is  just, 
and  time  is  fleeting.  Make  up  the  regiment,  and  the  victory 
is  won. 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND    THE   WAR    TAX. 

ADDRESS  IN  THE  MASSACUUSETTS   IIODSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

APRIL  10,  18G2. 

Me.  Speaker,  —  During  a  period  of  three  months  marked 
by  events  in  the  country  which  in  other  ages  would  have  fur- 
nished history  for  a  generation,  involving,  frequently,  painful 
alternations  of  hope  and  doubt,  —  at  one  time  darkened  by 
general  depression,  but  of  late  become  luminous  by  a  series 
of  achievements  which  promise  the  happiest  results,  —  it  has 
been  our  duty,  throughout  the  whole,  to  attend  patiently  to 
the  interests  of  our  own  Commonwealth.  That  duty,  I  need 
not  say,  has  been  discharged  with  an  unusual  degree  of  har- 
mony among  ourselves.  One  of  the  last  of  our  public  acts  is 
now  under  consideration,  and  upon  that  we  are  all  agreed, 
which  is  to  levy  the  tax.  All  the  other  assurances  of  war 
have  been  spread  out  so  long  and  so  vividly,  that  our  senses 
have  become  accustomed  to  the  scenes  passing  around  us. 
Without  conditions  we  have  urged  tlie  General  Government 
to  furnish  appliances  for  the  conflict;  and  upon  the  able, 
patriotic,  and  energetic  Chief  Magistrate  of  JNIassachusetts  we 
liave  conferred  full  authority  for  every  form  of  expenditure 
which  the  service  might  require.  We  have  met  the  exigency 
without  reservation.  But  now  it  is  that  another  evidence  of 
a  state  of  war  confronts  us,  and  demands  our  recognition  and 
action.  The  bills  are  coming  in ;  the  debt  is  to  be  provided 
for.  The  bills  are  many,  and  the  debt  will  be  large;  but 
they  are  upon  us,  and  must  be  met. 


10  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

And  here  let  me  appeal  to  the  Representatives,  and  through 
them  to  the  people  of  the  State,  not  to  overlook  one  consider- 
ation which  may  well  furnish  a  solace  amid  the  public  bur- 
dens. Since  war  has  been  forced  upon  us,  —  war  of  such 
dimensions  that,  in  comparison  with  it,  all  our  previous  ex- 
perience passes  into  an  eclipse,  —  we  ought  to  regard  it  as 
some  compensation  for  the  sacrifices  required  of  us,  that  the 
conflict  is  removed  from  our  own  doors.  In  the  commence- 
ment of  the  contest,  and  in  one  of  his  last  public  addresses, 
Mr.  Douglas,  whose  untimely  death  I  am  sure  we  all  deplore, 
justly  exhorted  the  Government  to  act  with  such  vigor  that 
it  should  be  a  war  in  the  cotton-fields  of  tlie  South,  and  not 
in  the  cornfields  of  the  Xorth.  That  has  been  accomplished. 
And  when  the  people  of  Massachusetts  look  about  them,  and 
contemplate  their  own  condition,  —  their  fields  and  marts 
and  workshops  comparatively  undisturbed  :  the  ordinary  chan- 
nel and  current  of  their  life,  if  impeded,  not  closed  up ;  their 
institutions  under  free  and  full  progress  ;  their  domestic  tran- 
quillity not  molested,  —  and  compare  all  this  with  the  waste 
and  desolation  which  have  swept  the  field  of  operations  in 
the  States  upon  the  border,  certainly  they  cannot  fail  to  ap- 
preciate the  beneficent  Providence  which  has  tempered  the 
severity  of  their  burdens  with  a  mercy  of  divine  economy. 
The  war  produces  embarrassments  here;  but  there  are  States 
where  it  makes  solitudes. 

In  our  discussions  concerning  the  public  debt  and  taxation, 
whether  here  or  in  the  country,  I  deem  it  of  high  importance 
that  we  should  avoid  all  extremes  of  sensation.  Some  there 
are  who  speak  of  national  bankruptcy ;  while  others  treat  our 
unexampled  expenditures  as  a  light  matter,  not  likely  to  pro- 
duce any  ajipreciable  inconvenience  to  the  people.  Both 
classes  of  persons  are,  in  my  judgment,  equally  unsafe  guides. 
The  accumulation  of  debt,  which  is  now  unavoidable,  is  un- 
precedented in  its  magnitude ;  but  it  will  he  met,  and  we 
shall  not  become  bankrupt. 

We  ought  not  to  attempt  any  disguise  of  the  magnitude  of 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   THE   WAR   TAX.  11 

the  present  expenditures.  They  are  undoubtedly  far  in  ad- 
vance of  any  example  of  which  we  have  historical  informa- 
tion. "War,  at  all  times  expensive,  has  been  rendered  doubly 
extravagant  in  our  case,  by  tlie  surprise  and  the  exigency 
which  demanded  immediate  outlays,  without  the  benefit  of 
that  order  and  system  which  can  only  be  realized  when  there 
is  time  for  deliberation  and  preparation.  Waste  and  fraud, 
also,  have  doubtless  done  their  full  share  to  swell  the  amount. 
At  this  moment  no  man  in  the  country  can  have  any  exact 
idea  of  the  rate  at  which  we  are  massing  the  debt.  There  is 
a  discrepancy  between  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the 
gentlemen  of  the  Ways  and  Means,  and  I  doubt  if  any  two 
of  the  latter  would  state  the  matter  in  the  same  figures. 
Averaging  these  authorities,  we  might  find  that  our  expen- 
diture will  amount  to  8800,000,000  or  $900,000,000  by 
January  next,  and  to  81,200,000,000  by  July  following.i 
I  see  it  stated  by  a  member  of  the  Senate,  that  we  are 
expending  at  the  rate  of  thirty  dollars  a  head  in  a  loyal 
population  of  23,000,000,  while  England,  at  the  lieight  of 
her  war  with  Xapoleon,  did  not  go  beyond  twenty  dollars  per 
head.  I  do  not  know  how  such  statements  in  detail  may 
correspond  witli  the  actual  facts ;  but  it  is  certain  that  the 
accumulation  of  our  disbursements  is  without  a  parallel.  The 
greatest  stride  that  was  ever  made  in  the  British  debt  was 
from  1803  to  1815,  a  period  of  twelve  years,  during  which  Eng- 
land conducted  the  battles  of  the  nationalities  of  Europe,  in- 
creasing her  debt  in  that  time  a  little  more  tlian  81,500,000,000. 
And  who  of  us  all  would  not  be  willing  to-day  to  close  in  ad- 
vance the  final  account  of  the  present  war,  by  estimating  the 
cost  of  the  subjugation  of  the  rebellion,  and  tlie  recovery  of 
the  public  liberties,  from  April,  1861,  to  April,  1863,  to  be  no 
more,  after  the  lapse  of  two  years,  than  that  of  Great  Britain 
at  the  expiration  of  twelve  years  ?  Such  rapidity  and  extent 
of  indebtedness  as  this  would  have  baffled  the  powers  of  any 

1  Mr.  Stevens,  the  Chairman  of  Ways  and  Means,  has  since  stated  the 
expenditures  at  a  much  higher  rate. 


12  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

European  government  recorded  in  the  annals  of  time.  If,  at 
the  commencement  of  this  century,  the  British  Ministry  had 
promulgated  its  intention  to  expend  a  thousand  five  hundred 
millions  in  resisting  for  two  years  the  arch  foe  of  the  peace  and 
stability  of  the  island,  solemn  and  profound  as  was  the  sense  of 
danger  and  of  duty  which  pervaded  the  minds  of  Englishmen, 
I  verily  believe  the  keys  of  office  would  have  fallen  from  the 
hands  of  administration  in  thirty  days.  The  American  peo- 
ple, and  the  American  people  alone,  could  be  called  upon  to 
cope  with  the  great  problem  which  in  the  foreknowledge  of 
God  has  been  reserved  for  our  time  and  our  country.  Be- 
lieve not  that  we  are  to  sustain  these  burdens,  and  not  have 
care  and  thought  engraved  upon  our  faces.  The  day  of  se- 
vere fact  is  before  us.  Nevertheless,  the  analogies  of  our 
experience,  the  miracles  of  our  history,  the  configuration  of 
our  land,  richest  of  the  earth  and  made  for  empire,  the  knit 
and  compacted  character  of  our  people,  Luilt  up  on  Teutonic 
foundations  yet  flexible  with  the  capacities  of  all  choicest 
nationalities,  the  gloom  and  despair  of  our  fathers  turned  to 
hope  and  fruition  before  they  slept,  move  us  forward  with 
inspiring  belief  that  what  would  have  discouraged  other  na- 
tions is  in  our  case  a  practicality  which  a  single  generation 
can  crown  with  performance. 

We  are  entering,  then,  upon  an  era  of  national  debt. 
Great  wars  always  bequeath  such  a  legacy  to  succeeding 
peace.  This  Government  is  running  an  account  which  cannot 
be  liquidated  in  ten  years,  perhaps  not  in  twenty ;  and  it  is 
right  that  it  should  be  so.  We  are  struggling  for  the  pat- 
rimony of  our  children,  and  some  portion  of  the  cost  will 
justly  descend  to  them  with  the  blessings  of  the  purchase. 
I  hear  it  sometimes  said  in  the  street  that  a  public  debt  is  a 
public  good ;  but  such  remarks  always  appear  to  me  as  the 
impulse  of  unreflecting  minds.  It  was  never  clear  to  my 
comprehension  how  a  debt  could  be  a  benefit.  In  his  opinions 
upon  that  subject,  Hamilton  in  his  youth  possessed  at  least 
the  wisdom  of  Burke  in  his  age.     And  yet   the  history  of 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   THE   WAR   TAX.  13 

Great  Britain,  and  of  our  country  as  well,  has  shown  that  a 
national  debt,  if  it  be  a  burden,  is  nothing  more.  We  of 
this  generation  have  been  so  long  enabled  to  pay  as  we  go 
along,  that  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  shadows  of  the  present 
fiscal  emergency  darken  the  spirits  of  men  whose  life  has 
been  accustomed  only  to  peace  theories  of  finance.  In  this 
respect  we  are  only  reproducing  the  experience  of  those  who 
have  gone  before  us.  It  is  now  a  hundred  and  seventy  years 
since  the  first  permanent  English  loan  was  made  by  Par- 
liament, inaugurating  that  policy  which  has  astonished  half 
a  dozen  generations  of  statesmen  liy  a  debt  constantly  aug- 
menting and  yet  not  visibly  obstructing  the  prosperity  of  the 
empire.  The  historian  who  better  than  others  has  analyzed 
the  domestic  and  social  condition  of  the  people  —  Lord  Ma- 
caulay  —  has  portrayed  the  alarm  which  seized  upon  business 
men  and  publicists  as  often  as  any  accession  was  made  to 
the  debt  of  England :  — 

"  At  every  stage  in  the  growth  of  that  debt  it  has  been  seriously 
asserted  by  Avise  men  that  bankruptcy  and  ruin  were  at  hand.  At 
every  stage  in  the  growth  of  that  debt  the  nation  has  set  up  tlie 
same  cry  of  anguish  and  despair.  Yet  still  the  debt  went  on 
growing ;  and  still  bankruptcy  and  ruin  were  as  remote  as  ever." 

This  apprehension  reached  the  acme  of  discouragement  in 
1815,  when  at  tlie  close  of  the  last  of  the  wars  with  France 
the  funded  debt  of  England  amounted  to  four  thousand 
millions  of  dollars. 

"  It  was  in  truth  a  gigantic,  a  fabulous  debt ;  and  we  can  hardly 
wonder  that  the  cry  of  despair  should  have  been  louder  than  ever. 
But  again  the  cry  was  found  to  have  been  as  unreasonable  as  ever. 
The  beggared,  the  bankrupt  society  not  only  proved  able  to  meet  all 
its  obligations,  but,  while  meeting  those  obligations,  grew  richer 
and  richer  so  fast  that  the  growth  could  almost  be  discerned  by 
the  eye." 

The  same  wTiter  gives  his  explanation  of  the  fallacy  of  those 
who  prophesied  nothing  but  general  destruction  :  — 


14  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

"  They  erroneously  imagined  that  there  was  an  exact  analogy 
between  the  case  of  an  individual  who  is  in  debt  to  another  individ- 
ual, and  the  case  of  society  which  is  in  debt  to  a  part  of  itself. 
They  were  under  an  error  not  less  serious  touching  the  resources  of 
the  country.  They  made  no  allowance  for  the  effect  produced  by 
the  incessant  progress  of  every  experimental  science,  and  by  the 
incessant  efforts  of  every  man  to  get  on  in  life.  They  saw  that 
the  debt  grew;  and  they  forgot  that  other  things  grew  as  well 
as  the  debt." 

And   the  noble  historian  affirms  without   fear  of  contra- 
diction that  England  may  in  the  next  century  be  better  able 
to  bear  a  debt  of  eight  thousand  millions  of  dollars  than  she 
is  at  the  present  time  to  bear  her  existing  load.     It  is  quite 
possible  that   the  love  of  the   sparkle  of  antithesis,  which 
marks  the  writings  of  the  brilliant  essayist  and  philosopher, 
may  liave  beguiled   him  into  a  somewhat   extreme  presen- 
tation of  substantial  truths ;  but  I  think  we  must  admit  the 
soundness  of  the  political  economy  which  imparts  strength 
to  the  silver  nerves  of  his  rhetoric.     At  all  events,  the  views 
he  has  presented  of  the  resources  of  the  English  nation  as  the 
solid  basis  for  public  debt,  may  be  applied  with  redoubled 
and  intensified  force  to  the  actual  and  prospective  circum- 
stances of  our  own  country.     With  a  land  affluent   beyond 
comparison  in    the  minerals  which   control    civilization  and 
supply  currency  and  the  useful  arts,  wanting  literally  nothing 
in  the  means  of  subsistence,  overstocked  with  the  products 
of  diversified  agriculture,  a  workshop  and  a  granary  for  the 
markets  of  the   world,  teeming   witli    a   population   whose 
inventive  genius  and  elastic  industry  as  far  exceed  those  of 
the  older"  countries  as  our  ratio  of  progress   has   distanced 
theirs,  and,  above  all,  vitalized  by  personal  freedom,  which 
is  the  parent  of  productive  power,  —  the  United  States,  and  ^ 
Massachusetts  as  a  component  part  and  for  all  her  share,  can 
bear  and  extinguish  a  debt  of  fifteen  hundred  millions  with 
less  suffering  and  less  inconvenience  than  any  other  nation 
that  has  existed  since  the  creation  of  man. 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   THE   WAR   TAX.  15 

There  is  of  course  a  limit  to  public  credit.  The  extent  to 
which  we  can  safely  pledge  our  own  property  and  production 
and  those  of  our  children,  cannot  be  very  well  defined.  I 
suppose  the  point  at  which  the  debt  of  the  country  would 
cease  to  be  secure  and  would  begin  to  work  national  degen- 
eracy, would  be  reached  whenever  the  debt  should  become  so 
large  that  the  productive  industry  of  the  country  could  not 
pay  the  interest  and  gradually  sink  the  principal  without 
stopping  the  general  growth  and  progress.  I  have  no  ai)pre- 
hensions  that  we  are  destined  to  reach  that  point.  I'irst, 
then,  we  must  have  sufficient  revenues  to  meet  the  interest 
and  reduce  the  principal.  No  State  can  e.xist  and  advance 
without  adhering  to  this  principle.  It  was  inscribed  upon 
the  columns  of  the  administration  of  Washington.  At  the 
commencement  of  our  life,  Hamilton,  who  brought  order  out 
of  chaos,  wished  to  see  it  incorporated  as  a  fundamental 
maxim  in  the  financial  system  of  the  United  States,  that  the 
creation  of  a  debt  should  always  be  accompanied  with  the 
means  of  extinguishment.  This  he  regarded  as  the  true  se- 
cret for  rendering  public  credit  immortal.  Our  present  neces- 
sities absolutely  devote  us  to  this  principle.  So  soon  as 
our  revenues  shall  be  seen  to  meet  this  requisition,  whatever 
be  the  modes  of  taxation  from  which  those  revenues  are  de- 
rived, our  securities  will  be  in  high  favor  and  fe^'e^ish  excite- 
ment will  aive  way  to  general  confidence ;  and  until  we  settle 
that  point,  bank  officers  may  visit  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, and  he  may  return  the  visits,  all  in  vain.  How  this  is 
to  be  accomplished,  it  belongs  to  Congress  to  study  and 
determine.  Whatever  system  of  taxation  may  be  at  first 
adopted,  experience  will  doubtless  suggest  improvements 
which  can  only  be  ascertained  by  exi)eriment.  But  for  a 
stable  credit,  which  shall  leave  men  at  liberty  to  pursue  their 
business  and  labor  to  receive  their  rewards  without  the  fear  of 
disturbance,  such  measures  of  revenue  must  be  as  positively 
certain  as  they  are  unconditionally  essential.  And  it  is  for 
the  interest  of  every  man,  whether  he  be  rich  or  poor,  that 


16  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

such  taxes  be  at  once  established  and  maintained.  Hesita- 
tion, doubt,  uncertainty  in  this  respect,  has  already  produced 
many  of  our  financial  troubles.  For  nine  months  we  have 
been  illustrating  the  language  of  the  Eoman  orator,  whose 
statesmanlike  philosophy,  with  slight  diversion  from  its  pro- 
vincial and  literal  application,  may  be  repeated  with  practical 
reference  to  our  present  necessities  of  taxation :  — 

^'  Nam  in  ceteris  rebus,  quum  venit  calamitas,  turn  detrimentum 
accipitur ;  at  in  vectigalibus,  non  solum  adventus  mali,  sed  etiam 
metus  ipse,  affert  calamitatem." 

Second,  this  interest  and  sinking  fund  must  be  furnished 
without  stopping  the  public  growth.  I  do  not  believe  we  are 
to  have  that  amount  of  debt  which  cannot  be  thus  met.  By 
the  census  of  1860  the  value  of  real  and  personal  property  in 
the  country  is  returned  as  somewhat  over  $17,000,000,000, 
and  it  appears  that  the  increase  since  1860  has  been  very 
much  more  than  one  hundred  per  cent.  A  sum,  therefore, 
measured  by  one  tenth  to  one  fifth  of  the  surplus  or  profits 
of  this  period  of  ten  years,  would  liquidate  the  probable 
expenditures  of  the  war.  The  property  of  the  people  of  the 
loyal  States  alone  is  nearly  $13,000,000,000.  I  am  aware 
there  is  but  little  comfort  to  the  tax-payer  to  be  derived  from 
this  style  of  statement ;  and  yet  it  ought  to  nerve  our  faith 
and  hope,  to  know,  as  well  as  we  know  anything,  that  if  the 
authority  of  the  Federal  Government  be  re-established,  our 
power  be  again  asserted  at  home  and  abroad,  the  sea  again 
be  made  to  murmur  with  the  keels  of  our  commerce,  and  the 
vast  and  complicated  machinery  of  our  internal  production  be 
again  set  to  its  music,  the  fractional  part  of  our  annual  in- 
crease will  take  care  of  the  whole  national  debt  before  the 
cliild  born  to-day  shall  arrive  at  the  age  of  citizenship.  The 
property  of  the  country  is  indeed  the  basis  upon  which  its 
liabilities  are  upheld ;  but  not  by  that  alone  do  I  measure  the 
certainty  or  time  or  facility  of  their  payment.  The  property 
is  the  representative  of  production.     And  it  is  the  production 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND    THE   WAR   TAX.  17 

of  the  people,  it  is  their  industry  which  moves  on  with  such 
marvellous  progression,  it  is  the  amazing  vigor  and  versatility 
and  self-development  of  their  genius,  which  will  bear  a  bur- 
den that  would  crush  the  pillars  of  any  other  government 
beside. 

In  all  these  considerations  Massachusetts  is  a  party  largely 
in  interest.  Whatever  measures  of  taxation  are  to  go  into 
effect  for  the  relief  of  the  public  treasury,  the  people  of  this 
Commonwealth,  as  a  loyal  and  paying  community,  will  be 
large  partakers.  They  are  offering  their  sons  on  the  altar  of 
the  Constitution,  and  they  expect  to  contribute  their  money 
and  tlieir  industry  in  the  common  expenditures.  But  there 
are  some  aspects  of  these  financial  relations,  in  which  we  of 
Massachusetts  will  appear  prominently  and  conspicuously 
beyond  the  lot  of  other  States.  I  have  barely  time  to  allude 
to  the  topic. 

I  think  it  just  that  we  should  not  conceal  the  fact  that  the 
people  of  Massachusetts  will  be  compelled,  by  the  circum- 
stances of  their  domestic  condition,  to  pay  an  amount  of  the 
expenses  of  the  war  beyond  their  proportion  of  population. 
Any  plan  of  internal  taxation  which  is  likely  to  be  adopted 
will  fall  in  a  large  degree  upon  the  industry,  upon  the  pro- 
duction and  consumption,  of  the  people  ;  in  all  of  which  there 
is  no  State  which  in  proportion  to  its  numbers  presents  so 
great  a  variety  and  luxury  of  life  to  be  subjected  to  tribute, 
as  this  Commonwealth.  The  burdens  of  the  debt  cannot  in 
any  considerable  measure  be  laid  upon  the  lands  of  the  peo- 
ple. It  is  not  public  policy  that  tliey  should  be.  In  Great 
Britain,  where  this  matter  of  taxation  has  been  reduced  to 
almost  a  science,  I  understand  that  land  pays  directly  not 
much  more  than  one  sixth  of  the  whole  tax.  The  condition 
of  the  real  estate  of  a  country  is  one  of  the  standards  of  its 
civilization,  and  the  stability  and  uniformity  of  its  value  must 
be  maintained  by  all  practicable  legislation.  It  is  therefore 
directly  upon  personal  property,  as  one  of  the  instruments  of 
production,  it  is  upon  production  and  consumption,  it  is  upon 

2 


18  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

labor  and  enterprise,  that  the  next  twenty  years  of  taxation 
will  greatly  depend. 

In  these  respects  Massachusetts  is  destined  to  become  a 
prominent  contributor.  I  find,  by  inspecting  the  statistics  of 
the  census  of  1860,  so  far  as  I  have  seen  them,  that  while 
Massachusetts  returns  one-seventeenth  part  of  the  real  estate 
of  the  loyal  States,  she  actually  shows  one-eighth  part  of  the 
whole  personal  estate.  In  this  particular  no  State  is  her  equal, 
except  imperial  New  York,  and  even  that  State  is  absolutely 
but  a  little  in  advance  of  us,  while  proportionately  she  is  far 
behind  us.  For  while  New  York  shows  considerably  more 
than  double  the  real  property  of  Massachusetts,  her  personal 
is  in  excess  of  ours  by  a  mere  fraction,  large  and  populous  as 
New  York  is.^  These  are  striking  facts.  They  place  us  far 
in  the  van  of  other  States  in  respect  to  our  personal  prop- 
erty ;  and  personal  property  is  peculiarly  an  exponent  of 
•our  industrial  power,  one  of  the  chief  instruments  of  our 
production,  the  tools  of  our  industry  and  enterprise;  and 
these  agencies  of  production  and  industry  are  to  a  great 
•  extent  representatives  of  the  proportion  in  which  we  shall  be 
ibrought  to  bear  the  expenses  of  the  war. 

If  now  you  ask  wdiether  Massachusetts  will  not  be  called 
•upon  to  sustain  burdens  beyond  anything  she  has  experienced 
in  the  last  forty  years,  I  answer,  certainly  she  will.  If  then 
it  be  asked  whether  she  can  bear  the  load,  I  answer,  undoubt- 
edly she  can.  I  invoke  the  testimony  of  her  history  and 
'experience.  Her  people  in  days  gone  by  have  illustrated 
^both  the  ability  and  willingness  to  support  government  and 
liberty  by  every  conceivable  sacrifice.  I  cannot  forget  that 
■within  two  years  after  the  engagement  which  is  commemo- 
rated by  yonder  shaft,  a  tax  of  £100,000  was  laid  upon  the 
State,  "when  few  had  a  competency  and  none  could  boast 
of  abundance."     I  cannot  overlook  the  fact  that  in  1780  the 

Real  Estate.  Personal  Property. 

»  New  York $1,069,658,080.      $320,806,558. 

Massachusetts     ....  475,413,165.         301,744,651.     " 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   THE   WAR   TAX.  19 

debt  of  Massachusetts  was  $5,000,000,  or  one-fourth  part 
of  the  estimated  vahiation  of  her  property.  I  cannot  speak 
of  the  present  war  without  being  reminded  that  during  the 
Kevolution,  and  up  to  1790,  Massachusetts  had  actually  paid 
towards  the  public  expenses  six  and  a  half  millions  of 
dollars,  and  that  this  amount  was  afterward  increased  to  ten 
millions  by  the  incredible  exertions  of  her  small  population. 
While  I  am  discussing  our  present  necessities,  and  the  ade- 
quacy of  our  resources  to  meet  them,  a  committee  of  the 
General  Court  of  1814  file  in  the  area  before  me  and  report 
that,  during  the  twenty-four  years  succeeding  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution,  the  Federal  treasury  had  received  from 
Massachusetts  alone  thirty  millions  of  dollars.  And  we  are 
to  remember  that  these  amounts  were  paid  when  not  only 
were  our  population  and  valuation  comparatively  small,  but 
especially  are  we  to  remember  that  they  were  paid  when  the 
productive  forces  of  the  State  were  confined  within  the  narrow 
limits  of  the  old  dispensation  of  her  industry,  which  has  since 
passed  away  and  been  succeeded  by  another  and  a  better. 
Those  great  producers  of  the  world,  those  great  tax-payers  of 
nations,  —  Arkwright  and  Crompton  and  Watt  and  Whitney, 
and  their  compeers  in  experimental  science,  —  had  not  then 
waved  their  wand  over  the  dead  level  of  human  employment. 
The  field  of  our  producing  power  presented  at  that  period 
only  the  few  original  occupations  of  men,  undistinguished  and 
undiscriminating,  plodding  unconsciously  towards  that  higher 
destiny  of  the  division  of  labor  which  is  blessing  our  day  with 
a  harvest  of  public  wealth.  Steam  and  water  had  not  yet 
been  tamed  to  fellowship  with  the  click  of  the  loom  and  the 
song  of  the  spindle.  Nevertheless,  in  all  the  simplicity  of 
their  pursuits,  and  in  all  the  poverty  of  their  resources,  the 
men  of  that  period  responded  at  length  to  every  public  claim, 
redeemed  at  length  every  public  levy,  and  transmitted  to  us 
the  record  of  their  sacrifices  without  the  taint  of  repudiation, 
and  without  so  much  as  the  blemish  of  non-payment.  The 
heritage  which  they  bequeathed  to  us,  and  which  for  half  a 


20  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

century  we  have  improved  and  embellished,  this  temple  of 
our  present  Zion,  ought  now  to  fade  away  forever  before  our 
eyes,  if  with  bold  faith,  if  with  exultant  alacrity,  we  do  not 
gather  around  it  with  all  our  hearts  and  devote  all  our 
resources  to  its  defence. 

I  have  thus  spoken  of  Massachusetts  in  the  past,  her  con- 
tributions to  the  common  liberties,  when  her  financial  abilities 
were  thus  restricted.     But  how  shall  I  speak  of  her  present 
capacity  to  grapple  with  the  exigent  demands  of  this  crisis  ? 
The  glow  of  a  new  dispensation  now  pervades  the  domain  of 
her  art  and  labor  and  commerce.      Under  the  impulse  im- 
parted by  machinery  and  the  useful  arts,  she  has  thrown  off 
the  identity  of  the  past  age,  and  mounted  to  an  elevation  of 
productive  power  and  wealth  that  finds  no  parallel  among 
American   communities.      Since    the   payment    of   the    last 
national  debt,  such  progress  as  before  would  have  been  the 
measure  for  ages  has  been  concentrated  into  the  space  of  a 
single  generation.     Within  a  period  of  thirty  years  the  prop- 
erty of  the  State  has  been  increased  from  $208,000,000  to 
$842,000,000,  or  more  than  fourfold,  i      This  valuation  is  a 
standard  measure  of  our  industry,  and  the  consideration  of  it 
in  connection  with  the  returns  of  our  production  will  justly 
inspire  the  highest  hope  of  the  future.     I  have  already  said 
that  the  ability  of  the  people  to  respond  to  taxation  is  to 
be  estimated  chiefly  by  their  producing  ability,  and  in  this 
respect  Massachusetts  is  in  a  condition  to  disregard  all  the 
croakings  of  the  sad  or  the  disaffected.     Fortunately  we  can 
point  to  a  well-established  system  of  statistical  returns  of  our 
industry,  which  has  already  furnished  volumes  of  facts  upon 
which  the  credit  of  our  securities  defies  the  scrutiny  of  the 
markets  of  the  world. 

The  first  of  these  volumes  was  issued  nearly  twenty-five 
years  ago.  When  Mr.  Webster  was  in  London  in  1839, 
certain  English  capitalists,  wlio  had  been  applied  to  for 
money  upon  Massachusetts  bonds,  the  first  ever  issued  in  a 

'  State  valuation  returns. 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   THE   WAR  TAX.  21 

foreign  market,  came  to  liim  for  information  touching  the 
credit  of  this  parvenu  on  the  stock  list.  "  I  went  to  my 
trunk,"  said  Mr.  AVebster,  "  and  took  out  an  abstract  of  the 
otticial  returns  of  the  amount  of  the  productive  labor  of 
Massachusetts.  I  put  this  into  the  hands  of  one  of  these 
inquirers,  and  told  him  to  take  it  home  and  study  it.  He 
did  so,  and  in  two  days  returned  and  invested  $200,000  in 
Massachusetts  stock." 

If  to-day  the  State  desired  to  raise  five  or  ten  millions 
upon  six  per  cent  stock  at  par,  our  last  abstract  of  industry, 
published  in  1855,  woiild  be  the  only  agent  we  should  need 
to  negotiate  the  loan.  With  these  returns  in  my  hand,  I 
plead  our  cause  and  our  ability.  If  there  be  another  com- 
munity of  a  million  and  a  quarter  of  inhabitants  which  can 
place  a  catalogue  of  its  industry  by  the  side  of  this,  expres- 
sive of  such  versatility  of  talent  and  diversity  of  pursuit,  — 
so  blending  utility  with  taste,  and  comfort  with  luxury,  —  so 
intermino[linfT  agriculture  with  what  we  term  the  useful  arts, 
and  stamping  upon  both  the  seal  of  a  common  interest 
and  a  common  destiny,  —  so  absolutely  gigantic  in  some  of 
its  larger  products,  and  in  some  of  the  smaller  as  deli- 
cate and  attenuated  as  a  woman's  perceptions  and  a  wo- 
man's fingers  can  make  it,  —  so  pervading  the  entire  State, 
every  town,  village,  hamlet,  household,  —  I  know  not  where 
it  is  to  be  found,  certainly  not  on  this  hemisphere.  Figures 
of  speech  are  dwarfed  by  the  figures  of  these  statistics.  They 
exhibit  an  annual  specified  production  of  labor  in  the  State  of 
three  hundred  millions  of  dollars ;  and  it  was  the  opinion  of 
the  Secretary  who  compiled  them  that  more  accurate  returns 
would  swell  the  list  to  three  hundred  and  fifty  millions,  or 
more  than  a  million  of  dollars  for  every  working  day  in  the 
year.  I  have  no  doubt  that  similar  returns  in  1860  would 
have  exhibited  an  amount  of  productive  labor  in  the  State  of 
FOUR  HUNDRED  MILLIONS  OF  DOLLARS.  It  has  been  said  that 
after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  General  Wasliington, 
at  a  dinner  table  in  the  midst  of  a  party  of  friends,  Northern 


22  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

and  Southern,  expatiated  upon  the  great  results  he  anticipated 
for  the  South  under  the  new  order  of  things,  with  her  rich 
productions  and  profitable  exchanges,  and,  turning  to  one  of 
his  Northern  guests,  exclaimed,  "  But  what  will  the  North 
do  ? "  "  We,  sir,"  was  the  prompt  reply,  —  "  we  will  live  by 
our  wits."  And  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophetic  reply  has  been 
consummated  in  our  day,  when  a  State  that  could  be  carved 
eight  times  out  of  the  map  of  Virginia  produces  annually  from 
her  fields  and  workshops  more  than  the  ordinary  value  of  the 
cotton  crop  of  the  United  States,  all  counted  from  the  ruins 
of  Jamestown  to  the  banks  of  the  Sabine.  It  would  have 
startled  the  Federal  Convention  of  1787  with  a  new  sense  of 
the  grandeur  of  its  work  to  have  been  told  that,  before  all 
then  born  should  pass  to  their  sleep,  the  little  Bay  State,  at 
that  time  without  a  spindle  to  respond  to  its  waterfalls, 
should  turn  out  in  a  year  fifty  millions  in  cotton  and  woollen 
fabrics ;  that  in  1850  it  should  produce  one-sixth  part  of 
the  aggregate  manufactures  of  the  Confederacy.  Cotesworth 
Pinckney  would  have  been  amazed  if  he  had  been  told  that 
his  State  should  so  soon  yield  a  cotton  crop  of  thirty  or  forty 
millions ;  but  it  would  have  been  a  greater  shock  to  his  nice 
sensibilities  if  he  had  been  assured  that  Massachusetts  would 
so  soon  give  a  boot  and  shoe  crop  of  fifty  millions.  In  a 
variety  of  phrase  and  comparison  I  might  state  the  footings 
of  the  Massachusetts  abstract  by  the  side  of  the  census  re- 
turns of  the  United  States  in  1850,  claiming  for  her  one  sixth 
of  the  iron  works,  two  thirds  of  the  fisheries,  one  sixth  of  the 
imports,  and  one  tenth  of  the  exports,  one  third  of  the  whole 
ocean  tonnage,  and  four  fifths  of  the  whale  fisheries ;  that 
while  coijimercial  circles  are  agitated  every  day  to  the  year's 
end  from  New  Orleans  round  to  New  York,  in  Liverpool,  in 
London,  by  the  quotations  of  cotton,  there  were  a  couple  of 
hundred  dealers  in  our  own  provincial  Boston,  whose  quiet 
sales  of  raw  and  manufactured  leather  amounted  to  sixty 
millions.  I  might  extend  these  facts  and  illustrations  to  the 
consumption  of  the  State,  and  might  show  that  there  is  not 


MASSACHUSETTS    AND   THE   WAR  TAX.  23 

probably  on  the  face  of  the  earth  a  community  of  equal 
numbers  whose  consuming  habits  and  capacity  make  so  large 
and  constant  demand  upon  every  branch  of  production  that 
yields  sustenance  or  comfort  or  luxury.  But  I  forbear. 
These  are  the  glimpses  of  more  extended  views  that  might 
readily  be  furnished,  but  they  are  sufficient  to  indicate  the 
variety  and  extent  of  our  productive  forces.  It  all  comes 
from  the  division  of  our  labor,  the  organization  of  our  indus- 
try, the  separation  of  our  employments,  the  application  of 
experimental  science  and  the  useful  arts.  It  is  this  which 
makes  our  little  territory  imperial.  The  abstract  to  which  I 
have  referred  discloses  a  wonderful  multiplicity  of  occupations 
in  every  qiiarter  of  the  State,  united  by  constant  and  copious 
admixture  of  interests.  It  reveals  production  and  exchange 
and  consumption  under  almost  every  conceivable  style  and 
denomination  of  labor.  The  Commonwealth  presents  a  scene 
of  life  and  energy,  of  action  and  achievement,  that  possess  all 
the  interest  of  martial  drama.  Not  an  army  has  come  upon 
the  field,  marshalled  its  squadrons,  and  contested  its  issues, 
each  man  ranging  under  his  banner  and  responding  to  his 
bugle,  with  more  of  method  and  subordination  than  is  dis- 
played by  more  than  three  hundred  thousand  men  in  Massa- 
chusetts as  they  come  forth  in  the  morning  of  every  day,  file 
off  under  their  chosen  pursuits,  and  lay  down  their  trophies 
at  nightfall  upon  the  altars  of  home.  Some  three  or  four 
years  since  the  Secretary  of  the  State  published  a  table  of  the 
numbers  and  occupations  of  all  male  persons  in  the  Common- 
wealth over  fifteen  years  of  age  ;  and  I  find  that  they  number 
three  hundred  and  thirty-four  thousand,  a  third  of  a  million, 
and  are  classified  under  one  hundred  and  fifty  different  occu- 
pations. As  the  eye  passes  over  these  printed  columns,  and 
the  imagination  follows  these  men  to  their  various  posts  of 
employment,  —  to  the  tranquil  fields  of  agriculture,  to  the 
resounding  workshops,  to  the  busy  marts  of  trade,  to  the 
mysterious  and  prolific  sea,  —  to  the  ponderous  machine  that 
is  measured  by  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  horses,  and  the  subtle 


24  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

conceptions  of  genius  that  work  their  honest  ten  hours  in 
iron,  brass,  and  copper,  and  never  tire,  —  to  the  fine  fashioning 
of  rude  woods,  and  the  textiles  wrought  from  the  raw  fibres 
of  every  land,  —  in  short,  through  the  vast  laboratory  of 
mortal  skill  which  is  ever  at  its  work  transmuting  air  and 
water,  the  earth  and  all  that  can  be  enticed  out  of  it,  aye,  and 
thought  and  reason  itself,  into  productions  for  the  market 
and  supplies  for  mankind,  —  with  what  a  comprehensive 
signification  does  our  idea  of  the  productive  labor  of  Massa- 
chusetts become  invested. 

Such  resources,  capacities,  developments,  —  such  accumu- 
lations of  stores,  supplies,  and  wealth,  —  these  sources  and 
springs  of  our  power,  —  are  now  brought  to  the  test  of  con- 
secration for  the  life  of  the  Government.  I  can  have  no 
doubt  that  they  will  bear  us  securely,  independently,  trium- 
phantly, through  the  struggle.  They  are  now  interrupted,  but 
they  cannot  be  destroyed.  They  will  shortly,  and  with  re- 
nfewed  vigor,  again  assert  their  supremacy  over  the  competi- 
tions of  other  States,  over  the  vicissitudes  and  adversities  of 
human  lot.  They  will  bear  us  again  to  fortune.  Soon  again 
the  Commonwealth  will  resound  with  the  echoes  of  industry 
through  all  her  borders,  and  spread  the  sails  of  her  commerce, 
the  pride  of  the  seas. 

The  bill  now  under  consideration  especially  invites  our 
attention  to  the  aspect  of  our  local  finances.  It  levies  what 
I  concede  to  be  a  large  tax,  $1,800,000.  The  nearest  ap- 
proximation to  this  which  we  have  before  had  in  the  present 
generation  was  in  1857,  and  that  was  only  half  the  present 
amount.  Some  idea  of  the  practical  application  of  this  bill 
upon  tlie  people  of  the  cities  and  towns  may  be  derived  from 
a  document  sent  in  to  the  House  by  the  Secretary  on  Sat- 
urday last,  showing  the  aggi-egate  of  taxes  assessed  in  the 
State  in  1861 ;  from  which  it  appears  that  the  total  amount 
taxed  for  county,  city,  and  town  purposes,  the  last  year,  was 
$7,300,000.  Assuming  the  same  amounts  to  be  raised  the 
present  year  by  the  several  municipalities  for  local  purposes, 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   THE   WAR  TAX.  25 

it  will  be  seen  that  this  bill  will  add  nearly  twenty-five  per 
cent  more  to  the  public  taxes.  The  necessity  for  this  is  cer- 
tainly to  be  regretted ;  but  let  the  people  consider  that  it  is 
part  and  parcel  of  the  necessities  of  the  war.  Of  the  amount 
proposed  to  be  raised  by  this  bill,  $700,000  is  for  the 
national  tax  assumed  by  the  State,  and  nearly  $500,000  is 
for  reimbursina;  to  the  towns  their  allowances  to  the  fami- 
lies  of  volunteers.  The  people  of  Massachusetts  need  not  be 
reminded  that  what  amounts  they  expend  in  aid  of  the  fami- 
lies of  our  brave  volunteers  wiU  be  recoiued  to  them  in  the 
wealth  and  treasure  of  the  heart.  I  do  not  forget  that  the 
towns  have  incurred  and  will  continue  to  incur  still  other 
expenditures  on  the  war  account,  which  will  not  be  included 
in  the  reimbursements  from  the  State  treasury.  The  whole 
subject  is  prolific  in  suggestions  of  local  economy  to  the  peo- 
ple of  every  city  and  town  in  the  Commonwealth.  Severe 
and  persistent  retrenchment  in  municipal  expenses  is  a  para- 
mount duty  and  necessity  which  will  have  to  be  learned  in 
the  next  twelve  months.  I  have  requested  the  Secretary  to 
furnish  me  with  a  statement  of  the  aggregate  tax  which 
will  be  paid  into  the  treasury  by  the  fourteen  cities  in  the 
State,  upon  the  basis  of  this  bill  of  $1,800,000 ;  and  I  find 
their  proportion  to  be  $1,006,297.  I  submit  whether  the 
legislative  authorities  of  these  fourteen  cities,  whose  ap- 
propriations for  the  year  probably  are  yet  to  be  made,  cannot 
save  a  considerable  proportion  of  this  million  by  measures  of 
local  retrenchment ;  and  the  several  towms  might  doubtless 
measurably  follow  the  example.  Such  considerations  are 
now  suggested  to  the  home  authorities  by  every  motive  of 
local  duty  and  public  patriotism,  and  if  not  heeded  this  year, 
they  are  very  likely  to  be  enforced  the  next  by  the  several 
constituencies. 

I  pass  now  for  a  moment  to  the  general  condition  of  the 
finances  of  the  State,  present  and  prospective.  The  war 
found  many  of  the  loyal  States  under  very  heavy  liabilities. 
It  found  Massachusetts  substantially  without  a  debt.     I  do 


26  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   II.   BULLOCK.  ^ 

not  mean  that  we  have  not  outstanding  scrip  to  a  large 
amount,  at  home  and  abroad ;  but  its  ultimate  and  certain 
extinguishment  has  been  provided  for  by  ways  and  means 
that  will  involve  no  necessity  of  much  taxation.  The  condi- 
tion of  our  public  liabilities  at  the  present  time  may  be  easily 
and  satisfactorily  stated.  First,  we  have  loaned  the  scrip  of 
the  State  to  certain  railroad  corporations  to  the  amount  of 
$5,825,000 ;  but  for  the  whole  of  this  amount  the  State 
holds  securities,  and  these  companies  may  be  relied  upon  to 
pay  the  debt.  From  this  estimate  the  Troy  and  Greenfield 
Eailroad  is  not  excepted,  because,  the  State  having  given  its 
confidence  to  the  enterprise,  I  feel  bound  to  believe  that  this 
confidence  has  not  been  misplaced.  Second,  we  have  issued 
upon  the  account  of  the  Union  Loan  Fund  of  1861,  $2,217,500, 
which  may  be  under  the  law  carried  up  to  $3,600,000 ;  but 
this  for  the  most  part  will  be  reimbursed  to  us  by  the 
General  Government,  a  portion  having  already  been  re- 
funded. Third,  we  have  outstanding  scrip,  issued  from  time 
to  time  upon  sundry  accounts  of  State  charities  and  for  other 
purposes,  amounting  to  $1,589,000  ;  and  for  these  loans  we 
have  provided  various  extinguishment  funds  which  will  prob- 
ably in  the  aggregate  be  nearly  or  quite  sufficient  to  redeem 
the  debts  at  their  maturity.  Under  this  triad  classifica- 
tion, then,  I  find  our  public  debt  may  be  stated ;  and  I  find 
it  also  apparently  provided  for.  Very  likely  there  may  be 
some  deficiencies ;  and  it  is  not  by  any  means  improbable 
that  our  expenditures  for  national  purposes  and  coast  de- 
fences may  not  altogether  fall  within  the  legitimate  rule  of 
reimbursement  by  the  United  States.  But  such  deficiencies 
cannot  in  any  sense  be  a  serious  burden  upon  the  State. 

With  the  amount  which  the  present  tax  bill  will  supply, 
and  with  the  added  amounts  of  the  annual  revenue,  we  ad- 
vance in  good  condition  up  to  January  next.  At  that  time  I 
estimate  that  the  State  will  have  to  provide  for  reimbursing 
the  towns  on  account  of  military  expenses,  $2,500,000.  Add 
to  this,  if  you  please,  somewhat  by  conjecture,  $1,000,000 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   THE   WAK   TAX.  27 

to  cover  all  deficiencies  before  referred  to,  all  local  mili- 
tary claims,  and  unforeseen  contingencies,  and  you  have 
made  up  a  debt  of  $3,500,000.  This  amount  can  readily 
be  raised  within  two  or  three  years ;  while  the  ordinary 
revenue,  increased  by  the  measures  of  taxation  proposed  by 
the  Finance  Committee  upon  the  funds  of  sundry  corpora- 
tions, will  be  amply  sufficient  to  meet  our  current  expenses, 
large  as  they  are  or  are  likely  to  be.  It  is  not  a  forced  con- 
clusion, therefore,  to  say  that  the  present  and  prospective 
financial  condition  of  the  State  is,  so  far  as  can  now  be  seen, 
free  of  embarrassment  or  apprehension.  I  advise  every  man 
who  holds  a  dollar  of  Massachusetts  scrip,  to  continue  to  hold 
it  and  cherish  it.  Our  credit  is  second  to  that  of  no  State  in 
the  world.  As  if  to  gild  the  very  edges  of  our  scrip,  we  have 
during  the  present  session  provided  that  both  interest  and 
principal  shall  be  paid  in  coin.  It  has  been  stated  with 
historic  sanction,  that  when,  loug  ago,  the  little  province  of 
Holland  owed  a  debt  of  $25,000,000,  so  just  was  her  sense 
of  national  faith  that  the  interest  was  always  ready  to  the 
day,  and  whenever  any  portion  of  the  principal  was  paid  the 
public  creditor  received  his  money  with  tears.  There  is  cer- 
tainly no  good  reason  why  the  credit  of  Massachusetts  should 
not  now  awaken  similar  emotions,  provided  only  the  sensibil- 
ities of  the  public  creditors  remain  the  same. 

Mr.  Speaker,  in  these  remarks  I  have  confined  myself  to 
the  financial  relations  of  the  war,  and  to  our  material  ability 
to  support  the  Government  through  this  great  crisis.  The 
manner  of  conducting  the  war  I  have  not  discussed,  because 
that  rests  in  the  discretion  and  conscience  of  those  who 
have  assumed  the  trust  of  guardians  of  our  liberty.  If 
through  any  fault  of  theirs  the  contest  shall  fall  short  of  the 
sublime  object  which  free  and  loyal  men  have  at  heart,  the 
people  will  not  be  answerable.  I  cannot  refrain  from  repeat- 
ing in  this  connection  the  language  of  Mr.  Burke,  uttered 
under  circumstances  of  national  peril  and  when  appalling 
fancies  disturbed  his  mind  :  — 


28  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   11.   BULLOCK. 

"  Tlie  people  [of  Massachusetts]  look  up  to  that  Government 
which  they  obey,  that  they  may  be  protected.  They  have  in  all 
things  reposed  an  enduring,  but  not  an  unreflecting  confidence. 
That  confidence  demands  a  full  return,  and  fixes  a  responsibility 
on  the  ministers  entire  and  undivided.  The  people  stand  acquitted, 
if  the  war  is  not  carried  on  in  a  manner  suited  to  its  objects.  If 
the  public  honor  is  tarnished,  if  the  public  safety  suffers  any  detri- 
ment, the  ministers,  not  the  people,  are  to  answer  it,  and  they 
alone.  Its  armies,  its  navies,  are  given  to  them  without  stint  or 
restriction.  Its  treasures  are  poured  out  at  their  feet.  Its  con- 
stancy is  I'eady  to  second  all  their  efforts.  They  are  not  to  fear  a 
responsibility  for  acts  of  manly  adventure.  The  responsibility 
which  they  are  to  dread  is  lest  they  should  show  themselves  un- 
equal to  the  expectations  of  a  brave  people.  There  is  a  responsi- 
bility which  attaches  on  them,  from  which  the  whole  legitimate 
power  of  this  country  cannot  absolve  them ;  there  is  a  responsi- 
bility to  conscience  and  to  glory ;  a  responsibility  to  the  existing 
world,  and  to  that  posterity  which  men  of  their  eminence  cannot 
avoid,  for  glory  or  for  shame ;  a  responsibility  to  a  tribunal  at 
which  not  only  ministers,  but  even  nations  themselves,  must  one 
day  answer." 

But  I  indulge  in  no  such  apprehensions.  I  have  an 
undoubtinrr  faith  in  the  honest  man  who  is  at  the  head  of 
the  Government,  that  he  will  be  just  to  all  parts  of  his  coun- 
try, and  not  forgetful  of  tlie  principles  upon  wliich  he  was 
borne  into  office.  The  people  of  Massachusetts  believe  in  no 
object  worthy  of  exhausting  their  treasures  and  shedding 
their  blood,  less  than  the  absolute  and  unconditional  recovery 
of  the  authority  of  the  Government,  if  that  be  possible.  They 
believe  that  to  be  possible.  And  if,  in  the  necessary  train 
for  the  accomplishment  of  that  purpose,  any  tradition  or  cus- 
tom or  relation  or  domestic  institution  stand  as  an  obstacle, 
—  whatever  it  may  be,  —  let  it  be  swept  away.  The  national 
life  is  the  principal ;  all  other  things  are  incidents.  The  war 
will  terminate  ingloriously  for  us  if  we  reach  any  otlier  than 
honorable  peace ;  and  honorable  peace  is  to  be  conquered, 
not  purchased  or  compromised. 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   THE   WAR   TAX.  29 

It  will  come  at  last ;  the  war  cannot  continue  any  very- 
great  length  of  time.  And  with  peace,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
foresee  that  humanity  may  assert  her  title  to  some  share  in 
the  victory,  though  it  be  in  the  best  of  all  the  ways  of  human 
reform,  by  simple  operation  of  natural  causes  rather  than  by 
prolonged  violence.  With  peace,  it  is  not  difficult  to  foresee, 
as  one  of  the  consequences  which  may  be  evolved  by  Divine 
Providence  out  of  this  tragic  epoch  in  the  world's  history, 
that  Liberty  —  as  we  learn  the  word  from  the  stately  prose  of 
Milton,  from  the  serene  benevolence  of  Washington,  from  the 
impetuous  democracy  of  Jefferson  —  may  vindicate  her  claim 
to  the  poet's  numbers  :  — 

"More  great  than  ever  now,  and  more  august, 
Now  glorified,  slxe  from  her  fires  does  rise  ; 
Her  widening  paths  on  new  foundations  trust, 
And  opening  into  larger  parts  she  flies." 


ADDRESS 

before  the  alumni,  at  amherst  college,  july  8,  1863. 

Gentlemex,  Alumni  of  Amherst  : 

I  COULD  not  salute  my  honorable  successor  in  the  chair,^ 
M'ithout  first  felicitating  you  ujDon  the  occasion  of  your  return 
to  the  scenes  of  our  common  attachment.  Let  us  be  happy 
in  these  reunited  numbers.  Having  tasted  the  chalice  of 
life,  in  whatever  mixture  of  success  and  labor  and  care  it 
has  pleased  Providence  to  pass  the  cup  to  our  lips,  we  come 
back  to  these  academic  festivities  to  sweeten  once  more  its 
brim  with  the  dews  of  the  fountain  and  the  grove. 

It  is  true  we  cannot  bring  before  us  our  own  Commence- 
raent  day  precisely  as  it  was.  Too  many  of  our  companions 
already  sleep.  Each  class  especially  bears  a  memory  of  its 
own  departed.  I  can  speak  for  myself ;  hail,  and  farewell ! 
Some  of  the  teachers  here  are  strange  to  us.  INIany  of  us 
recognize  but  few  familiar  faces  among  the  people  of  the 
town,  in  which  the  manhood  of  our  day  has  ripened  into  age, 
and  the  carnation  of  youth  has  given  way  to  maturer  beauty. 
Even  these  grounds  and  buildings  liave  been  so  altered  that 
we  are  almpst  compelled  to  inquire  after  the  haunts  of  our 
boyhood. 

And  yet  all  has  not  changed.  The  same  outward  nature ; 
the  queenly  Connecticut,  with  its  valley,  fairest  of  the  in- 
tervales of  America ;  yonder  masses  of  morning  and  evening 
mist,  converting  here  and  there  patches  of  the  broad  alluvion 

1  Hon.  James  Humphrey,  of  New  York. 


ADDRESS   BEFORE   THE   ALUMNI,  AT   AMHERST   COLLEGE.     31 

into  silvery  lakes,  until  such  time  as  the  panoramic  curtain 
lifts  before  the  sun  and  the  mirage  rolls  away,  like  many  a 
dream  of  our  life ;  the  solemn  configuration  of  this  mountain 
range,  upon  which  to  the  observant  student  no  twilight  nor 
moonlight  has  ever  fallen  and  been  forgotten ;  Holyoke,  and 
Tom,  and  Sugar  Loaf;  the  undimmed  crown  of  an  Amherst 
sunrise ;  the  benediction  of  an  Amherst  sunset ;  this  vast  am- 
phitheatre, with  its  divine  garniture,  vital  with  traditions  and 
histories,  peopled  with  a  noble  race,  I  have  sometimes  fancied 
bowing  its  mountain  heads  and  turning  partly  thither  the 
sparkling  cincture  of  its  river  as  if  in  recognition  of  this 
seat  of  learning  as  the  divinity  of  all  the  scene  ;  —  these,  as  we 
remember  them,  and  as  they  have  been  since  the  morning  of 
the  creation,  all  these  are  still  here,  and  they  welcome  us  to- 
day as  in  the  bygone  times  of  our  classic  walks  and  contem- 
plation. AVhat  returning  and  filial  son,  associating  his  alma 
mater  with  these  inspiring  memories  of  his  youth,  does  not 
this  morning  respond  to  the  rhapsody  in  which  the  sensitive 
poet  upon  a  similar  occasion  gave  vent  to  his  emotions  ? 

Ah,  happy  hills  !  ah,  pleasing  shade  ! 

Ah,  fields  beloved  in  vain  ! 
Where  once  my  careless  boyhood  strayed, 

A  stranger  yet  to  pain  ! 
I  feel  the  gales  that  from  ye  blow 

A  momentary  bliss  below, 
As,  waving  fresh  their  gladsome  wing, 

My  weary  soul  they  seem  to  soothe, 
And,  redolent  of  joy  and  youth. 

To  breathe  a  second  spring. 

Each  year  as  I  revisit  this  institution  I  am  more  and  more 
deeply  impressed  by  the  contrasts  of  its  history.  My  thoughts 
run  backward  to  the  straits  of  tribulation  through  which  the 
College  was  obliged  to  pass  before  she  could  assume  a  place 
in  the  community  of  letters ;  to  the  conflict  she  was  called  to 
wage  with  principalities  and  powers,  having  no  weapons  for 
the  unequal  warfare,  save  justice,  truth,  and  faith ;  to  her 
early  but  partial  triumph ;   to  her  protracted  struggle  with 


32  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

poverty  at  home  and  prejudice  abroad ;  sending  forth  in  the 
first  years  but  small  classes,  with  some  such  emotions  as  are 
shared  by  the  depressed  mother  who  commits  her  son  to  the 
cold  charities  of  the  world,  trusting  in  God  that  he  may 
achieve  a  condition  better  than  her  own.  Passing  then  from 
that  experience  to  the  present  time,  I  find  the  College  liand- 
somely  endowed,  the  monuments  of  her  Willistons  and  Hitch- 
cocks  and  Searses  and  Walkers  and  Tappans,  halls  and 
temples  of  the  school,  rising  from  year  to  year  on  every  slope  ; 
her  cabinets  affluent  with  contributions  from  every  clime,  and 
I  may  as  well  say  from  every  age  of  the  world ;  a  learned 
and  efficient  corps  of  teachers  who  wear  their  robes  proudly 
and  well ;  and  a  band  of  students  thronging  her  avenues  and 
corridors  who  do  not  look  as  if  they  intend  ever  to  apologize 
for  having  been  born.  We  may  fondly  believe  that  the  insti- 
tution has  passed  the  epoch  of  heroic  struggle,  and  that  hence- 
forth, sustained  by  economy,  here  and  liberality  elsewhere, 
she  shall  multiply  her  departments  and  extend  her  influence 
until  her  chaplet  shall  wear  a  leaf  plucked  from  every  field 
of  renown  or  virtue. 

And  the  results  are  proportionate  to  the  sacrifice  and  the 
struggle.  These  doors  are  open  alike  to  the  sons  of  fortune 
and  favor  and  to  those  of  ruder  and  less  cultured  surround- 
ings ;  and  by  the  latter,  quite  as  frequently  at  least  as  by  the 
former,  have  the  harvests  of  the  world  been  reaped.  We 
invite  for  our  system  and  our  College  public  observation  and 
comparison.  The  nymph  of  modern  learning  is  neither  coy 
nor  enshrouded  in  mystery ;  she  is  full-robed,  stands  out  in 
the  view  of  mankind,  and  mingles  in  the  events  of  life.  Our 
Arethusa  follows  no  hidden  channel  of  private  luxury  or 
pride  to  the  objects  of  her  love ;  but  rather  her  waters  flow 
on  with  open  current  in  the  presence  of  the  age,  —  in  which 
all  people  may  lave,  from  which  all  high  causes  may  catch 
the  cheer  and  sparkle  of  progress,  for  the  healing  of  the 
nations,  —  enriching  the  coming  and  departing  generations. 
The  ancient  mythology  yields  to  modern  action,  and  myth- 


ADDRESS   BEFORE   THE   ALUMNI,   AT   AMHERST   COLLEGE.     33 

history  gives  way  to  practical  annals.  The  classic  story 
which  represents  a  perfect  youth  to  have  been  lulled  to  per- 
petual sleep  that  he  might  be  bathed  in  the  eternal  kisses  of 
the  moon  —  which  called  forth  from  the  fine  though  capri- 
cious genius  of  Keats  his  "  Endymion  "  and  masterpiece  —  is 
reversed  in  our  time  and  is  reproduced  only  in  its  counter- 
part. The  model  youth  no  longer  sleeps,  whether  for  private 
luxury  or  public  example  ;  but,  binding  on  the  helmet  of 
learning,  and  the  breastplate  of  a  virtuous  purpose,  and  the 
whole  panoply  of  the  educated  and  practical  man,  he  enters 
the  arena  in  which  all  have  an  equal  chance :  he  tills  the 
land,  he  teaches  school,  he  preaches  the  Word,  he  heals  the 
sick,  he  acts  the  counsellor,  he  operates  a  machine,  he  writes 
books,  he  fights  battles,  he  governs  States,  he  is  radical,  he 
is  conservative,  he  guides  and  tempers  the  practicalities  of 
his  public  career  by  the  sweet  counsel  of  his  private  studies ; 
and  when  called  to  make  his  fellowship  with  the  dead,  he 
leaves  behind  him  the  track  of  a  hero  and  a  man.  And  who 
shall  say  that  for  actors  in  all  this  social  scene  and  social  des- 
tiny, the  institution  here  present  has  not  largely  and  richly 
contributed  ?  Cast  your  eyes  around,  and  you  behold  the 
graduates  of  your  College  thickly  scattered  among  all  the 
high  enterprises,  the  useful  and  the  fine  arts,  the  contempla- 
tive literatures,  the  beneficent  humanities,  the  veiled  and  the 
unveiled  glories  of  this  and  a  better  life.  I  hear  of  them  afar 
teaching  original  languages,  enlarging  the  boundaries  of  philo- 
logical science  among  the  mosques  and  mountains  and  palm- 
trees,  placing  our  local  signet  upon  the  literary  standard  of 
the  Orient,  and  sending  back  the  trophies  of  their  research  to 
our  alcoves  and  cabinets,  where  they  repose  to-day.  I  count 
them  to  you  everywhere  spoken  of,  acknowledged,  and  felt 
among  the  forces  and  combinations  that  mould  and  guide 
American  States,  —  entering  the  halls  of  the  national  council 
with  the  mace  before  them,  —  dressed  in  ermine,  dispensing 
law  and  justice  with  ability  unsurpassed, —  by  their  power  and 
individuality  having  already  placed  the  pulpit  of  this  land 

3 


34  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

in  advance  of  all  others  beside,  —  associating  the  type  and 
impression  of  this  school  with  the  fairest  structures  and  high- 
est honors  of  our  civil  polity,  —  and,  M-hile  I  am  speaking, 
leading  regiments  in  the  field  and  bearing  forward  the  eagles 
of  the  Union  to  victory  in  the  sublime  civil  strife  that  is 
upon  us.  Surely,  my  fellow-students,  wherever  they  are,  in 
large  numbers,  in  peace  or  war,  among  the  living  or  the  dead, 
they  have  annals  and  garlands  for  us,  to  illustrate  the  insti- 
tution whose  name  they  bear.  I  feel  prepared  to  say  that 
Amherst  has  attained  indemnity  for  the  past  and  security  for 
the  future.  Let  us  give  her  the  filial  all-hail.  Salve,  magna 
PARENS ! 

Gentlemen,  a  little  beyond  the  period  usually  allotted  to  a 
generation  of  men  has  elapsed  since  our  first  class  went  forth 
from  these  halls.  In  all  this  time  the  number  of  those  who 
have  graduated  here  is  one  thousand  five  hundred.  This,  so 
far,  is  certainly  an  auspicious  result.  At  the  expiration  of 
two  hundred  years  from  the  foundation  of  Harvard,  five  thou- 
sand four  hundred  had  received  her  diploma.  In  numbers, 
therefore,  and  for  her  age  in  years,  Amherst  has  a  title  to  the 
name  of  a  public  benefactor.  Such  a  title,  thus  earned,  you 
will  appreciate  if  you  think  for  a  moment  of  the  imperishable 
nature  of  mental  influences.  Applied  to  the  mind  and  culture 
of  a  nation,  which  so  manifestly  makes  and  marks  its  history 
and  transmits  its  names  from  age  to  age,  we  readily  apprehend 
the  truth  that  it  is  not  its  commerce  or  fields  or  fleets  that 
can  crown  it  with  the  assurance  of  immortal  fame ;  it  is 
rather  its  genius,  its  mental  essence,  its  conception  of  tmth 
and  beauty  and  freedom  and  glory,  that  is  borne  in  the 
written  and  spoken  word  to  the  latest  time.  I  am  afraid 
Cicero  is  a  little  too  didactic  for  these  days  of  martial  events, 
but  he  uttered  a  significant  truth  for  nations  and  individuals 
in  declaring  that  but  for  the  "  Iliad "  the  fame  of  Achilles 
would  not  have  been  handed  down  through  the  ages.  And 
so  it  is  the  subtle  and  poetic  mind  of  Greece  —  surviving 
the  oblivion  which  has  overtaken  achievements  enough  to 


ADDRESS   BEFORE   THE   ALUMNI,   AT   AMHERST   COLLEGE,     35 

make  a  thousand  histories  since  her  day ;  received  this 
hour  as  lovingly  in  the  schools  of  America  as  wlien  it  first 
burst  upon  that  early  civilization  in  the  East,  above  even  her 
arms  and  works  of  outward  grandeur  —  which  possesses  a 
charmed  life  that  cannot  decay.  Descending  from  nations  to 
individuals,  and  directing  our  attention  to  the  leaders  of  mind 
who  have  appeared  at  intervals  in  the  centuries,  we  readily 
recosjnize  the  fact  that  the  intellectual  creations  of  Plato  and 
Tully,  of  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,  of  Milton  and  Burke,  first 
awakening  the  kindred  inspiration  of  scholars  and  thoughtful 
men,  thence  passing  into  the  common  imderstandiug  and 
common  language  of  the  world,  acquire  at  last  a  range  and 
circuit  of  power  that  can  be  measured  by  no  finite  or  mortal 
standard.  Such  masters  touch  the  responsive  chord  in  the 
heart  of  the  race;  they  stir  into  action  the  elements  of  human 
being  as  tliey  exist  in  all  countries  and  in  all  times ;  and  thus 
they  themselves  become  ubiquitous  and  immortal.  They 
realize  to  us  the  wish  of  the  Eomau  orator,  that  a  man  so 
accomplished  as  Hortensius  might  never  die.  Passing  from 
these  high  examples  to  other  gradations  of  cultivated  intel- 
lect, to  such  positions  as  the  greater  number  of  educated  men 
must  be  content  to  hold,  we  behold  them  also  exercising  the 
same  exalted  prerogative ;  in  humbler  sphere,  it  is  true,  but 
with  like  quality  of  effect,  —  upon  the  table-land  instead  of 
the  mountain  top,  but  with  the  same  boundless  horizon.  A 
pebble  dropped  in  mid  ocean  is  felt  on  the  farthest  shore ; 
and  though  this  is  a  less  striking  manifestation  of  power  than 
an  earthquake  which  ingulfs  a  city  or  a  navy,  yet  the  same 
law  of  physical  disturbance  gives  effect  to  both  occurrences. 
Consider  now  the  case  of  a  thousand  men  trained  in  the 
development  and  discipline  of  liberal  studies  ;  follow  them  as 
they  go  into  all  states,  all  positions,  all  walks  in  life ;  behold 
some  advancing  till  they  become  guides  in  statesmanship  and 
administration,  in  whom  large  numbers,  perhaps  generations, 
place  their  trust ;  see  others  mounting  to  the  sereuest  altitudes 
of  a  clergyman's  empire,  which  comprises  our  entire  social 


36  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

condition,  from  "  the  proud  man's  contumely  "  to  the  pathos 
of  a  child ;  look  yet  further  to  the  large  multitude  of  others, 
whether  solacing  the  heart  of  humanity  by  noble  words  and 
deeds,  or  dispensing  instruction  to  a  rising  race,  or  speaking  a 
new  hope  in  the  ear  of  labor,  or  revolutionizing  the  tables  of 
mortality,  or  adding  higher  intelligence  and  higher  honor  to 
commerce,  —  in  whatever  calling  and  place,  all  and  everywhere 
diffusing  over  the  scene  in  which  they  move,  and  therefore 
diffusing  over  the  fields  of  time,  imperishable  thoughts,  ideals, 
forms  of  moral  excellence,  of  purest  truth,  of  sweetest  art,  of 
generous  patriotism,  of  genuine  philanthropy,  of  Divine  Love, 
—  all  and  everywhere  quoted,  some  by  a  continent,  some  by 
a  state,  others  by  a  town,  —  all  and  everywhere  reproducing 
themselves  in  the  next  generation  by  the  influence  they  have 
upon  their  own,  so  that  after  death  their  lives  are  renewed  to 
the  end  of  the  world.  Ah,  my  friends,  this  mental  influence, 
whether  of  the  individual  educated  man  or  of  the  college  that 
sends  him  forth  on  his  mission,  is  an  eternity. 

*'  On,  like  the  comet's  way  througli  infinite  space, 
Stretches  the  long  untravelled  path  of  light, 
Into  the  depth  of  ages  ;  we  may  trace, 
Afar,  the  brightening  glory  of  its  flight, 
Till  the  receding  rays  are  lost  to  human  sight." 

Yes,  companions,  "  lost  to  human  sight ; "  not  lost  to  the 
Omniscient  Eye,  not  lost  in  the  august  reckoning  in  which 
institutions  and  persons  will  be  called  to  account,  not  lost  in 
the  distribution  of  palms,  not  lost  in  the  award  of  crowns 
and  jewels. 

Gentlemen,  our  anniversary  comes  to  us  for  the  third  time 
amid  general  convulsion.  Our  reflections,  which  under  other 
circumstances^  would  have  been  mostly  those  of  merely  per- 
sonal fellowship,  are  toned  and  shaded  hy  the  shifting  scenes 
of  the  national  drama.  The  groves  and  fountains  and  temples, 
all  the  grand  old  histories  and  dreamy  mythologies,  the  stately 
lAoman  and  the  picture  Greek,  with  wliicli  the  returning 
alumnus  would  gladly  associate  the  festive  hours,  are  now  to 


ADDRESS   BEFOKE   THE   ALUMNI,   AT   AMHEKST   COLLEGE.     37 

US  chiefly  sources  of  inspiration  in  the  support  of  our  dis- 
tressed country.  If  I  were  looking  for  the  truest  conceptions 
of  loyalty  and  freedom,  I  could  not  pass  by  the  colleges  of 
New  England.  If  by  possibility  there  can  be  extenuation  for 
him  who,  in  the  engrossments  of  -mere  gain  or  mere  ambition, 
has  learned  the  way  to  give  one  half  of  his  heart  to  his 
country  and  the  other  to  its  enemies,  no  door  of  pardon  for 
such  a  crime  is  open  to  him  who  goes  from  the  privileges  of 
liberal  studies  to  the  transcendent  responsibilities  of  present 
action.  From  civilization  in  its  dawn,  communicated  to  us 
by  yonder  library ;  from  the  exalted  sentiments  of  classic  and 
heroic  authors,  among  the  most  manly ;  from  the  lessons 
thundered  in  our  ears  by  the  great  orators,  dear  to  every 
enlightened  student ;  from  the  old  and  the  middle  ages,  that 
are  swept  by  his  memory ;  from  the  philosophy  of  the  mind, 
and  from  the  teachings  of  his  holy  religion,  —  one  voice  only 
at  this  moment  emerges ;  it  is  the  voice  of  the  congregated 
past,  it  is  the  voice  of  the  shades  of  the  mighty  dead, — 

Be  thou  TRUE,  AND  FAITHFUL,  AND  VALIANT  FOR  THE  PUBLIC 

LIBERTIES.  Let  others,  if  they  will,  bow  their  heads  before 
adverse  reports  when  they  come  from  the  field ;  the  patriot 
scholar,  enlightened,  inspired,  —  whether  the  tidings  come 
from  Fredericksburg  or  Gettysburg  or  Vicksburg,  —  fixes  a 
steady  gaze  upon  the  triumph  of  his  principles.  Let  others, 
if  they  will,  disguise  disloyalty  with  superstition,  and  give 
up  all  for  lost  when  "  the  birds  of  wide-spread  wing  fly  to 
the  left,  towards  the  darkening  west,"  —  though  now,  thank 
Heaven,  they  all  "  fly  to  the  right,  towards  the  sun  and  the 
morning,"  —  the  patriot  student  turns  his  Homer  to  better 
use ;  he  invokes  the  spirit  of  the  chivalric  Hector, 

"  And  asks  no  omen  but  his  country's  cause." 

And  we  may  well  take  pride  in  being  enabled  to  say,  that 
from  the  origin  of  this  Government  to  the  present  hour  the 
educated  men  of  the  country  have  taken  a  lead  in  organizing 
and  upholding  republican  liberty.     I  am  not  to  repeat  to  you 


38  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

the  thrice-told  tale  of  the  Revolution,  emblazoned  by  such 
graduates  as  Otis,  and  two  Adamses,  and  Warren,  and  Han- 
cock, and  Witherspoon,  of  coequal  fame.  Sufficient  unto  us 
are  the  illustrations  of  our  own  day ;  and  in  this  great 
struggle  I  call  you  to  witness  the  conduct  of  our  own  gallant 
boys.  Nearly  or  quite  one  hundred  of  our  undergraduates, 
or  more  than  one  quarter  of  the  whole  number,  have  within 
the  two  past  years  enlisted  in  the  military  service.  How 
many  of  the  graduates  of  the  College  are  in  the  war  I  know 
not,  but  the  number  is  large.  The  youths  of  Amherst  are  not 
second  to  any  senior  institution  in  the  numerical  force  or  the 
intelligent  patriotism  or  the  irresistible  valor  with  which  they 
bear  up  the  radiant  flag.  They  are  on  every  field.  Wliile 
you  are  trimming  the  lamp,  they  are  lighting  their  camp 
fires  ;  while  you  preach  truth  and  freedom,  they  practise  and 
defend  it ;  while  you  are  threading  the  academic  walks,  they 
are  marching  along  the  margin  of  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death.  In  exposure  or  sickness  or  battle  they  do  not  forget 
these  scenes  of  their  love ;  let  us  not  forget  them.  If  they 
shall  fall,  we  will  reclaim  their  ashes  if  we  can ;  but  if  other- 
wise it  must  be,  "the  most  precious  tears  are  those  with 
which  heaven  bedews  the  unburied  head  of  a  soldier." 

In  the  autumn  of  1861  it  was  my  privilege,  as  the  mouth- 
piece of  the  ladies  of  the  city  in  which  I  reside,  to  present  to 
the  Twenty-first  Massachusetts  their  colors.  Borne  through 
many  appalling  vicissitudes,  riddled  by  shot  and  stained  with 
blood  at  Roanoke,  and  Newbern,  and  in  other  hard-fought 
conflicts,  they  received  their  last  and  enduring  baptism  at 
Fredericksburg,  and  have  now  been  assigned  a  place  in  one 
of  the  rooms  of  the  State  House,  where  they  may  henceforth 
be  seen.  He  who  received  the  standard  from  my  hands, 
after  commanding  the  redment  in  some  of  the  most  san^ui- 
nary  engagements  of  the  war,  and  winning  by  his  equal  valor 
and  discretion  unfading  laurels,  honors  us  by  his  presence 
to-day,  and  affords  me  the  opportunity  of  extending  your 
OTeeting  and  mine  to  Colonel  and  Professor  Clark.     Another 


ADDRESS   BEFOKE   THE   ALUMNI,   AT   AMHERST    COLLEGE.     39 

fair  son  of  Amherst,  in  the  dew  of  his  youth,  buoyant  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  a  Christian  hero,  was  present  upon  the  occasion 
to  which  I  have  alluded.  Side  by  side  with  Clark,  young 
Stearns  ^  went  to  the  crest  of  battle,  and  fell  in  the  arms 
of  victory.  Eecorded  honors  cluster  over  his  grave,  and  the 
academic  shades  of  Amherst  in  which  his  dust  reposes  have 
been  consecrated  for  ever  and  ever  to  the  country  for  whose 
government  and  liberty  he  laid  down  his  life. 

1  Adjutant  Stearns,  son  of  the  President  of  the  College,  and  who  fell  in 
the  battle  at  Newbern. 


REMARKS 

on  the  occasion  of  the  reception  of  the  twenty-first  massachu- 
setts regiment  by  the  citizens  of  worcester,  feb.  3,  186i. 

Mr.    Mayor,    Officers   and   Men   of   the   Twexty-first,    and 
Fellow-Citizens  : 

On  the  23d  day  of  August,  1861,  one  of  the  sweetest  and 
brightest  of  our  skies,  when  the  sun  was  descending  behind  the 
curtain  of  these  Western  hills,  the  Twenty-first  Eegiment  was 
drawn  up  in  line  on  yonder  camp  ground  to  receive  its  regi- 
mental colors  and  the  public  greeting  of  the  vast  assemblage 
which  had  convened  to  bid  them  hail  and  farewell.  More 
than  a  thousand  men,  freshly  from  their  homes  in  Worcester 
and  Hampden  and  Franklin  and  Berkshire,  stood  expectant 
for  the  last  word  of  our  fraternal  sympathy  and  the  bugle- 
note  of  their  departure.  The  ceremony  was  quickly  over; 
they  filed  through  our  streets,  and  were  lost  to  our  sight  until 
to-day. 

But  in  the  interval  we  have  heard  from  them,  Massachu- 
setts has  heard  from  them,  the  world  has  heard  from  them  ;  — 
on  the  tedious  voyage,  on  the  long  marches,  amid  the  silent 
watches  and  camp  fires,  in  the  hospital,  on  the  picket,  in 
many  a  skirmisli,  in  nine  pitched  battles,  —  Roanoke,  New- 
bern,  Camden,  Bull  Run  2d,  Chantilly,  South  Mountain, 
Antietam,  Fredericksburg,  Knoxville, — wherever  the  flag  has 
called  them,  wherever  the  enemy  of  their  country  could  be 
found,  wherever  God  has  opened  the  portals  of  glory  to  wel- 
come the  soldier  of  liberty. 


KECEPTION    OF   THE   TWENTY-FIRST   MASS.    REGIMENT.       41 

And  now,  fellow-citizens,  follow  these  men  from  their  camp 
in  Worcester  to  Annapohs,  to  North  Carolina,  back  to  Vir- 
ginia, to  Maryland,  to  Tennessee,  through  four  States  in 
rebellion,  —  everywhere  patient,  enduring,  triumphant ;  never 
despairing  of  their  country,  never  dishonoring  their  States 
never  losing  their  flag;  all  and  everywhere  the  same,  —  at 
the  morning  drum-beat,  in  the  shock  of  battle,  in  the  funeral 
procession  to  the  bed  of  a  comrade's  rest; — remember  that  all 
but  twenty-four  have  re-enlisted  to  see  the  end  of  the  war  and 
the  end  of  its  cause,  and  tell  me  if  they  do  not  make  their 
history  on  their  march  and  carry  it  with  them,  if  their 
reward  is  not  in  all  your  hearts,  and  if  their  praise  shall  not 
be  known  and  heard  on  earth  till  it  shall  merge  in  the  reveille 
of  the  resurrection. 

And  now  they  return  to  us.  But  of  all  whom  I  had  the 
honor  to  address  two  years  and  a  half  ago,  only  one-fourth 
part  are  here.  In  the  history  of  the  wars  of  Europe  we  read 
of  the  decimation  of  armies.  This  war,  between  men  of  the 
same  race  and  of  the  same  national  fraternity,  tells  a  sadder 
story  than  that.  Of  those  who  went  forth  from  Worcester  as 
members  of  the  Twenty-first,  ten  officers  have  passed  to  their 
sleep.  One  hundred  and  sixty  enlisted  men  have,  while  in 
service,  transferred  their  names  to  the  roster  of  another  life. 
Three  hundred  men  have  fallen  by  wounds  which  proved  not 
to  be  mortal.  Forty  men  have  been  taken  prisoners,  —  only 
forty,  for  these  men  prefer  not  to  be  captured.  Count  those 
disabled,  discharged,  worn  out,  then  add  the  gallant  present, 
and  the  tale  of  the  Twenty-first  is  completed.  But  not  with- 
out a  word  for  those  who  sleep  in  death.  Ye  blessed  men,  of 
enviable  lot !  The  dews  of  heaven  shall  keep  ever  verdant 
the  turf  that  covers  your  ensanguined  dust !  Earth  has  no 
higher  honor,  music  no  tenderer  dirge,  freedom  no  loftier 
hallelujah,  than  those  which  accompany  your  names  to  im- 
mortality. 

Of  the  officers  to  whose  fate  I  referred,  Adjutant  Stearns 
fell  at  Newbern,  Lieutenant  Holbrook  at  Antietam ;   all  the 


42  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

others,  save  one  killed  by  accident  and  one  who  died  by 
disease,  —  Lieutenant-Colonel  liice.  Captain  Frazer,  Captain 
Kelton,  Lieutenant  Bemis,  Lieutenant  Hill,  Lieutenant  Beck- 
with,  —  were  killed  in  the  slaughter  of  Chantilly,  where, 
almost  without  any  general  commander  at  all,  the  Union  boys 
of  the  ranks  saved  the  capital  from  the  hands  of  the  enemy. 

Adjutant  Stearns  is  not  more  lastingly  embalmed  in  the 
hearts  of  the  regiment  than  in  the  heart  of  all  patriotism  and 
all  piety.  Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  20tli  of  July,  1861, 
when  the  dismal  tidings  of  the  first  Bull  Run  vibrated  over 
the  wires  through  the  towns  of  ]\Iassachusetts,  Clark  and 
Stearns,  the  one  a  professor  and  the  other  a  student  in  the 
College  at  Amherst,  joined  their  hands  and  united  their  oaths 
over  the  disaster,  and  within  six  hours  they  turned  the  keys 
of  their  doors  on  the  outside,  and  gave  themselves  to  the 
bloody  fortunes  of  the  Union. 

The  living  is  here  to  speak  for  himself ;  I  speak  only  for  the 
dead.  Stearns  was  in  the  dew  of  his  youth,  in  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  love  of  God,  of  his  country,  of  human  nature.  He  fell 
at  Newbern,  in  tlie  victory  of  your  arms.  No  purer  spirit 
has  been  added  to  the  sublime  oblation  of  war.  In  kindness, 
in  justice  to  his  father,  my  friend,  and  in  tender  respect  for 
his  own  heroic  sacrifice  on  the  altar  to  which  we  all  may  come 
at  last,  I  offer  him  the  ineffectual  tribute  of  my  farewell. 

"  Blest  youth  !  regardful  of  thy  doom, 
Aerial  hands  shall  build  thy  tomb, 

With  shadowy  trophies  crowu'd  ; 
"Whilst  Honor,  bathed  in  tears,  shall  rove. 
To  sigh  thy  name  through  every  grove, 

And  call  her  heroes  round." 

Lieutenant-€olonel  Ilice  is  well  remembered  in  this  county 
of  Worcester.  He  was,  I  believe,  an  honorable  mechanic 
in  tlie  town  of  Ashburnliam.  He  long  commanded  as  Colonel 
our  old  Ninth  Eegiment  of  the  volunteer  militia,  and  was 
one  of  those  representative  military  men  who  served  in  time 
of  peace  to  keep  up  the  organization  and  preparation  for  the 


EECEPTION   OF   THE   TWENTY-FIRST   MASS.   REGIMENT.       43 

time  of  war.  And  when  the  war  blast  came,  without  pride 
of  rank,  without  hesitation,  counting  the  cost,  and  knowing 
the  venture,  he  stepped  forth  from  his  peaceful  pursuits  and 
gave  up  his  life  that  his  country  might  live. 

Men  of  the  Twenty- first !  on  the  day  in  August,  1861, 
already  alluded  to,  in  behalf  of  the  women  who  now  fill 
these  galleries,  I  handed  to  you  your  colors.  I  tlien  said 
to  you,  "Eeverence  this  flag  in  the  hour  of  security,  and 
honor  it  in  the  clustering  battle."  Brave  men,  you  promised 
to  do  it,  and  you  have  kept  your  pledge.  The  thunders  of 
Roanoke  and  Newbern,  the  horrors  of  Chantilly  and  Freder- 
icksburg, the  blazing  glories  of  Antietam  and  Knoxville,  — 
the  soil  of  four  States  stained  by  your  blood,  —  the  evidence 
of  Burnside  and  Reno  and  Magi  and  Clark  and  Hawkes,  — 
the  spirits  of  the  unsheeted  dead  you  have  left  in  rude  graves 
behind  you,  whispering  in  your  ears  to-day  from  the  galleries 
of  the  sky,  —  your  own  presence  here,  —  this  color-bearer 
before  me  [Sergeant  Plunkett],  whose  plucky  soul  still  marches 
on  custodian  of  the  flag,  —  these  streets,  this  hall,  crowded  to 
honor  and  bless  the  present  and  to  revere  the  departed,  —  all, 
all  bear  a  testimony  as  conspicuous  and  enduring  as  if  lettered 
over  the  heavens  from  pole  to  anti-pole,  that  you  have  kept 
your  pledge.  No  further  proof  is  wanted,  but  one  other  proof 
remains.     It  is  your  own  dear,  tattered,  blood-stained  flag  ! 

Brave  men  of  the  Twenty-first,  behold  your  flag !  It  has 
conducted  you  through  the  storm  and  fire  and  smoke  and 
blood  of  battle ;  cheer  it  now  that  it  has  left  you  and  taken 
its  place  in  history.  Look  upon  it,  ye  men  and  women  of 
Worcester,  —  behold  it  riddled  with  ball  and  bullet  in  seven 
memorable  conflicts,  beginning  with  Roanoke  and  ending 
with  Antietam,  —  then  look  again,  and  behold  the  ghastly 
rents  made  by  the  shell  at  Fredericksburg,  and  see  the  stripes 
of  red  and  white  merged  in  crimson  by  the  blood  of  the  fallen 
brave  !  Look  upon  it,  ye  who  gave  it,  and  strew  the  paths  of 
these  brave  boys  with  the  beauty  and  fragrance  of  flowers  ! 
Look  upon  it,  ye  men  of  Worcester,  who  have  done  but  little 


44  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK, 

and  could  have  done  more,  and  ye  who  have  done  much  and 
could  do  no  more,  —  look  upon  it,  according  to  your  con- 
science, with  satisfaction  or  with  repentance,  —  and  resolve 
that  henceforth  the  life  of  the  Eepublic  shall  engross  our  hearts, 
our  fortunes,  and,  if  need  be,  our  blood  and  our  lives.  Look 
upon  it,  Colonel  Pickett  and  men  of  the  Twenty-fifth,  and 
behold  what  reward  awaits  you  when  the  residue  of  your 
great  re-enlistment  shall  come  home  and  be  received  in  tliis 
heart  of  Massachusetts.  Look  upon  it,  ye  men  of  the  Fifty- 
seventh,  and  behold  what  exalted  honor  is  in  store  for  those 
who  go  forth  for  Union  and  Liberty  and  Humanity. 

And  now,  Mr.  Mayor,  men  of  the  Twenty-first,  and  fellow- 
citizens,  let  us  not  forget  our  destiny  and  our  dependence. 
For  the  approaching  end,  and  for  the  result,  already  apparent, 
which  shall  thrill  the  heart  of  humanity  to  the  end  of  time, 
not  unto  ourselves,  but  unto  Thee,  Almighty  God  of  our 
fathers,  shall  be  all  the  praise,  forever  and  forevermore ! 


THE  EELATIONS  OF  THE  EDUCATED  MAN  WITH 
AMEEICAN  NATIONALITY. 
/ 

ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  LITERARY   SOCIETIES  OF  WILLIAMS   COLLEGE, 

AUG.  1,  1864. 

We  have  no  choice  of  theme.  If  we  seek  a  thesis  for  this 
hour  in  the  circles  of  thought  wont  to  be  our  privilege  and 
our  charm,  —  among  the  curiosities  of  literature  or  abstract 
speculation,  or  in  the  ages  of  men  and  events  remote  from 
our  grasp,  and  yet  hitherto  all  the  more  attractive  for  the  dim 
twilight  through  which  the  scholar  followed  them  up  to  the 
sources  of  their  life  and  power,  —  it  is  in  vain,  and  our  heart 
comes  back  to  this  our  own  America,  to  this  the  day  of  her 
trial,  and  goes  out  into  all  the  scene  of  her  epic  action.  The 
train  of  our  reflections  is  peremptory.  Isolated  by  the  decrees 
of  Providence,  shut  out  from  the  galleries  of  history  to  the 
necessity  of  vindicating  our  own,  compelled  to  drop  the  tone 
of  exultation  and  to  hold  glory  and  hope  in  abeyance,  until 
—  yeoman,  student,  and  soldier  alike  —  we  fight  our  way 
back  to  our  imperiality,  our  contemplations  are  shaped  and 
controlled  by  our  situation.  And  yet  let  not  your  speech 
or  mine  be  of  a  lost  Pleiad,  or  an  expiring  nation,  or  Capi- 
toline  ruins,  or  unbelief,  or  despair.  You  who  are  about  to 
pass  through  the  gateway  of  the  school  to  a  larger  respon- 
sibility and  action  more  grand,  you  who  remain  a  little  longer 
for  preparation  more  ample,  and  those  of  us  who  have  preceded 
you  many  years,  —  all  of  us,  —  all  of  us,  —  let  our  thought  be 
hopeful,  let  our  speech  to  others  give  the  sound  of  a  conscious- 
ness of  national  life  to  be  continued  and  renewed,  of  victories 


46  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

yet  to  be  won,  of  a  future  that  shall  challenge  nations  to  the 
prize,  whether  of  fleets  or  armies  or  peace  or  humanity. 
That  is  the  only  omen  for  us.  That  is  the  only  picture  for  a 
student,  —  in  the  darkest  and  most  uncertain  day,  if  govern- 
ment and  prophecy  and  arms  seem  to  fail,  still  let  him 
gaze  upon  that  picture  and  no  other ;  animum  pictura  pascit 
inani. 

We  are  here,  then,  to  give  the  passing  hour  to  the  rela- 
tions OF  THE  educated  MAN  TO  AMERICAN  NATIONALITY.  I 
might  speak  of  the  country,  or  national  life,  but  I  use  rather 
NATIONALITY  as  comprehending  the  whole,  —  not  as  a  rhapsody 
or  sentimentality,  but  as  comprising  the  inward  sentiment  and 
the  outward  form  of  all  that  which  most  interests  us  to-day. 

1.  In  the  first  place,  think  how  great  a  thing  a  nation 
is.  Do  not  regard  it  as  only  the  aggregate  of  individuals, 
but  try  to  apprehend  it  as  a  power  and  a  life,  an  agency, 
the  agency  and  instrumentality  among  the  providences  of 
God  and  the  designs  of  his  glory.  We  are  indeed  a  part  of 
it,  but  only  for  a  moment.  We  live  not  our  lives  merely,  but 
we  live  a  state  of  consciousness  that  runs  back  and  prefigures 
among  the  "eternities,  blending  with  the  ages  past  and  bidding 
the  next  ones  hail.  Continental  geography  is  its  handmaid, 
but  not  its  name,  and  would  be  nothing  without  it;  the 
Mississippi  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  from  their  frozen  source, 
over  all  their  majestic  flow,  till  they  mingle  with  the  outer 
world,  are  obscure  streams  save  as  they  waft  the  parental 
idea  and  promote  the  parental  renown.  These  mountain 
ridges,  gulfs,  bays,  which  divide  us  and  yet  unite  us,  whose 
prodigal  beauties  and  profitable  commerce  make  a  part  of  our 
boast,  our  literature,  our  song,  might  as  well  reclaim  their 
pi-imeval  solitudes,  if  they  respond  to  no  common  heart,  no 
one  sweet  jurisdiction,  no  one  protective  flag.  This  mixture 
of  races,  source  of  our  invigoration,  elasticity,  and  stimulation 
beyond  what  has  been  seen  on  the  globe,  —  let  them  dissolve 
and  revert  to  the  fogs  of  Great  Britain,  the  factions  of  Ger- 
many, the   snows  of  Swedeland   and  Norway,  if  for  them 


THE  KELATIONS  OF  THE  EDUCATED  MAN,  ETC.      47 

and  for  us  we  are  to  have  no  common  chord,  no  national 
melody. 

The  organism  of  a  nation  !  It  infolds  and  blesses  races ;  it 
perpetuates  traditions,  ideas,  examples,  principles ;  it  is  full 
of  the  germs  of  the  growth  of  cities,  great  industries  and 
prosperities ;  it  vibrates  to  the  step  of  tlironging  masses  of 
men  who  march  like  an  organized  army  to  culture  and  power; 
it  is  sealed  to  the  purposes  of  God's  creation  by  temples  and 
schools,  social  aesthetics,  the  purities  and  the  beatitudes  on 
earth,  the  ties  which  connect  generations,  the  life  of  poetry 
and  art,  the  sacred  custody  of  the  ashes  of  the  dead,  the 
assurances  of  progress  which  shall  encircle  the  next  age  with 
the  fruit  and  shade  of  a  better  condition,  the  guardianship  of 
worship  which  since  the  harp  of  the  Orient  was  strung  to  the 
cadences  of  national  success  and  woe  has  joined  the  comfort 
of  patriotism  to  the  solace  of  religion ;  it  is  the  sleepless 
sentinel  of  life  and  liberty  and  property  to  coming  and  going 
millions ;  it  is  the  schoolhouse  of  rising  generations ;  it  is 
the  august  arbiter  of  justice ;  it  is  the  peaceful  angel  of  our 
tastes  and  humanities ;  it  is  government,  without  which,  in 
obeyed  and  felt  majesty,  there  is  no  development  for  man,  no 
mission  for  woman,  no  sleep  for  children.  How  sublime  the 
life  of  a  nation !  and  how,  according  to  modern  experience 
and  conception,  it  is  the  offspring  of  the  continuity  of  the 
centuries.  It  is  the  treasury  of  histories.  If  it  fall,  the 
inspirations  of  vast  annals  perish  with  it ;  for  national  life  is 
the  illuminated  chain  connecting  all  annals  with  the  popula- 
tions and  welfares  to  come.  It  is  a  great  loss  to  lose  a 
country.  In  this  stage  of  the  world  we  cannot  afford  any- 
where to  begin  anew.  The  preservation  of  the  past  —  of  the 
past  realized,  of  our  own  past  —  is  essential  to  the  hopes  of 
the  future.  There  can  be  no  such  death  as  the  death  of 
the  animating,  the  teaching,  the  inspiring  history  of  a  nation ; 
and  yet,  saddest  of  catastrophes,  when  a  country  dies,  its 
annals  lose  their  mission,  its  historic  unities  pass  away,  afloat 
on  the  viewless  air ;  men  will  continue  to  play  with  them  as 


48        ADDRESSES  OF  ALEXANDER  H.  BULLOCK. 

antiqiiaries  for  their  amusement,  but  with  the  loss  of  their 
home  and  abiding-place,  their  life  and  instruction  are  gone 
forever. 

For  the  extinction  of  its  historical  lessons,  traditions,  exhil- 
arations, it  matters  not  much  whether  a  nation  perish  outright, 
ingulfed  by  an  earthquake,  undermined  by  rapid  decay,  or 
disappear  by  disintegration  and  new  constructions.  The 
greatest  gap,  the  most  ghastly  chasm  in  the  progressions  of 
the  race,  comes  of  the  rupture  of  historical  connections.  The 
moment  national  existence  terminates,  the  philosophy  of  its 
examples  becomes  shadowy,  fabulous,  lost.  When  Sj)arta 
and  Athens  disappeared  from  the  map  like  a  dream,  how 
surely  and  how  quickly  the  pall  of  uncertainty  dropped  on 
the  mighty  power  of  their  lesson.  Mist  and  darkness,  myth 
and  fable,  followed  in  their  track.  Eead  Herodotus  and 
Plutarch  and  Grote,  and  compare  them  with  all  the  Avriters, 
for  the  instructions  of  that  day  ;  observe  what  doubt  hangs  over 
the  whole  scene,  —  as  to  who  fought  those  battles  and  how, 
as  to  who  WTote  many  of  those  orations  and  songs,  as  to  who 
lived  and  led  those  states.  The  practical  connection  is  lost : 
and  for  most  of  the  good  that  comes  to  the  consummation 
of  man  and  the  glory  of  God,  with  the  departure  of  Greece 
from  the  list  of  nations  living  lier  lessons  and  traditions 
departed  also.  If  you  doubt  this,  M'hich  I  assert  as  a  sad 
truth,  try  it  among  your  earliest  efforts  of  public  oratory ; 
draw  your  historical  parallels  from  Greece,  or  Eome,  or  tlie 
Italy  of  somewhat  later  date  but  now  gone  to  the  shades,  and 
then  take  your  illustrations  from  England  or  America ;  and 
while  your  auditory  will  yawn  and  sleep  over  the  former,  they 
will  give  to  the  latter  open  ears,  rapt  and  suffused  eyes. 
Washington  went  to  Philadelpliia  in  1V87  to  preside  over  the 
Constitutional  Convention,  carrying  a  synopsis  of  the  ancient 
republics,  his  own  preparation  and  study ;  but  there  is  no 
evidence  that  in  all  the  long  session  he  ever  unrolled  his 
manuscript.  And  so  it  is  and  will  be.  When  you  extinguish 
a  nationality,  you  commit  to  forgetfulness  the  guides  of  ciy- 


THE   llELATIONS   OF   THE   EDUCATED   MAN,   ETC.  49 

ilization ;  you  quench  the  lights  of  a  common  literature  ;  the 
luminaries  which  liave  conducted  generations  of  men  to  accu- 
mulative fame  become  obscured ;  the  masters  of  thought  are 
jostled  out  of  their  living  sanction  and  lie  evermore  in  the 
haze  which  increases  as  it  gathers  over  a  lost  people. 

If  you  were  to  break  up  the  union  of  Great  Britain,  tlie 
worst  of  all  calamities  w^ould  be  that  you  would  dissolve  the 
spell  of  names  wliich  have  flamed  in  all  the  heavens  ;  a  hun- 
dred years  would  not  elapse  before  Chatham  and  Burke  and 
Pitt  and  Canning,  and  their  great  compeers,  would  cease  to 
be  felt  as  living  authorities,  would  have  no  home-bound 
charm,  no  awful  sanction  of  empire  or  country,  and  would 
speak  to  the  hereafter  with  voices  scarcely  more  audible 
than  those  which  echo  from,  her  dark-aged  abbeys.  If  you 
break  up  the  union  of  America,  that  lettered  glory  of  the 
Eevolutionary  period  which  has  stimulated  three  genera- 
tions, that  learning  and  eloquence  of  the  constructive  period 
which  followed,  that  valor  of  fathers  and  sons  which  has 
sheeted  so  many  a  State  and  sea  with  flame,  that  honor  of 
our  neutrality  and  dignity  of  our  diplomacy,  tliat  wealth 
of  record  and  biography  and  legend,  that  continuous  vic- 
tory of  peace  which  has  set  our  stars  as  signets  on  every 
mountain,  valley,  or  ocean,  that  renown  of  the  wise  men, 
that  wisdom  of  Franklin  and  Jefferson  and  Hamilton  and 
Madison  and  Adams  and  Webster,  in  which  we  live  each  day 
and  rise  to  heroic  purpose,  —  before  this  class  now  gradu- 
ating should  go  to  its  sleep,  these,  with  all  their  associate 
values  and  attractions,  would  pass  away  from  gaze  and  love, 
and  the  image  of  Washington,  the  great  and  venerable, 
would  be  veiled  forever  and  forever. 

"  The  great  historical  hour "  menacing  such  a  catastrophe 
is  upon  us.  The  mission  of  some  of  you  begins  wdiile  the 
great  shadow  is  passing  over  us.  Never  had  the  heart  of 
youth  such  fascination  before  it  for  a  solemn  study  and  a 
happy  self-sacrifice  and  a  radiant  life.  The  classic  spirits  of 
ancient  and  modern  days  combine  to  light  your  path  and  to 

4 


50  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER    II.    BULLOCK. 

inspire  your  conduct.  That  rich  legacy  which  the  early 
Quincy,  dying  on  shipboard  under  our  Eastern  projecting 
headland,  in  the  first  hour  of  his  country's  agony,  bequeatlied 
to  the  infant  son,  who,  almost  a  century  later,  and  only  last 
week,  took  the  elegiac  honors  of  Harvard,  —  how  fit  an 
inheritance  for  every  boy  of  the  free  North  in  this  day  of 
fate :  — 

"I  give  to  my  son,  when  he  shall  arrive  to  the  age  of  fifteen 
years,  Algernon  Sidney's  Works,  John  Locke's  Works,  Lord 
Bacon's  Works,  Gordon's  Tacitus,  Cato's  Letters.  May  the  spirit 
of  Liberty  rest  upon  him  !  " 

2.  In  the  next  place,  as  you  step  forth  to  action,  consider 
American  nationality  in  its  unity  and  in  its  diversity. 

And  first,  its  unity.  Never  before  has  any  nation  exhibited 
such  apparent  unity  and  design  in  the  relations  of  Providence 
and  historic  development.  Eecall  the  growth  and  consolida- 
tion of  other  empires,  and  observe  over  what  broad  fields  of 
time  they  range,  and  with  how  little  of  rounded  completion 
or  connection.  The  historical  threads  which  connect  the  past 
with  the  present  of  England  or  France  run  in  confusion  of 
inextricable  maze  over  a  thousand  years ;  and  it  has  seemed 
to  me  that  there  is  more  of  ingenuity  than  good  sense  in  the 
modern  tlieory  which  attempts  to  trace  through  all  these 
convolutions  any  appreciable  current  of  unifying  processes,  as 
if  one  of  the  stages  liad  a  palpable  connection  of  logic  or 
sequence  with  a  remote  century  preceding  or  following.  At 
all  events,  the  periods  are  too  long,  there  is  too  much  mystery 
and  monkery  and  darkness  over  them  all,  too  many  petty 
squabbles  and  great  strifes  without  sufficient  cause  or  intel- 
ligible result,  too  much  that  seems  accidental,  too  many 
reversals  of  policies  and  epochs,  to  make  it  easy  for  you  or 
me  to  take  in  tlie  idea  of  the  rational,  logical,  distinct  growth 
of  a  national  unity  from  Alfred  or  Charlemagne  until  now. 
;More  conspicuous  and  inferential,  —  in  part,  perhaps,  because 
more  recent,  —  certainly  more  striking  and  impressive,  is  the 


THE  KELATIONS  OF  THE  EDUCATED  MAN,  ETC.      51 

idea  of  causation  and  unity  running  through  our  national  life. 
There  appears  to  be  a  marvellous  beauty  of  design  from  our 
beginning.  God  kept  America  unknown  to  Europe  until  old 
things  should  have  passed  away  and  all  things  become  new. 
This  nationality  was  not  to  be  vexed  by  the  old  schoolmen, 
their  alchemy  and  astrology,  their  pursuit  after  the  philoso- 
pher's stone,  their  outlawry  of  the  arts  and  inventions  which 
elevate  the  race,  their  cruelties  and  impracticabilities.  The 
generations  devoted  to  "  trimming  the  lamps  of  ancient  sepul- 
chres "  were  to  go  to  their  burial  before  the  Western  nationality 
should  be  born.  A  new  leader  was  to  appear,  and  a  new 
philosoj)hy,  to  usher  in  the  eras  of  which  we  were  to  become 
at  once  partakers  and  ultimately  the  masters.  Bacon,  rising 
in  full-orbed  splendor,  and  America,  mounting  in  the  hori- 
zon, —  these  were  to  be  contemporaneous  occurrences.  The 
one  was  to  furnish  the  world  with  instructions  and  examples 
as  mucli  more  magical  in  their  effect  than  anything  preced- 
ing, as  the  vitalized  English  of  John  Bunyan  surpasses  the 
Latin  mockeries  of  St.  Peter's  and  the  Vatican ;  the  other 
was  to  accompany  the  new  dispensation  on  its  mission  and 
conduct  it  to  its  divine  results.  And  it  has  sometimes  seemed 
to  me,  as  one  of  the  coincidences  of  history  which  imply  a 
Providence,  that  the  same  year  (1620)  which  witnessed  the 
conclusion  of  one  of  Bacon's  great  works,  which  more  than  any 
other  of  them  all  and  great  was  destined  to  turn  the  current 
of  the  human  mind  to  the  achievement  of  that  social  progress 
of  which  we  more  than  any  people  are  sharing  the  benefits, 
was  also  witness  of  the  establishment  on  the  shores  of  this 
continent  of  a  new  political  power  in  the  earth,  —  another 
nationality,  —  whose  destiny  it  lias  been  to  apply  and  expand 
his  lessons  with  results  that  cast  all  the  experience  of  former 
time  into  an  eclipse.  If  that  original  founder  of  our  opening 
era  could  have  foreseen  how  his  instructions  would,  ere  the 
lapse  of  two  centuries,  spread  their  roots  over  a  country  then 
reposing  in  the  sleep  of  unawakened  nature,  his  prescient 
genius  would  have  anticipated  the  lyric  prophecy  of  Bishop 


52  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

Berkeley,  uttered  a  century  later  at  Newport,  —  our  talisman, 
our  watchword  of  America,  — 

' '  There  shall  be  sung  another  golden  age, 
The  rise  of  empiiie  and  of  arts." 

And  so  our  nationality  started,  out  of  the  unities  of  Provi- 
dence, to  accept  and  develop  the  new  and  wise  philosophy 
which  was  to  apply  social  progress  to  the  welfare  and  freedom 
of  mankind.  And  so  it  has  proceeded  and  succeeded.  It  has 
made  tlie  age  of  industry  an  age  of  power ;  has  crossed  all 
mountains  and  all  seas  ;  has  borne  our  influence  to  the  Ganges 
and  the  Amazon  and  the  Andes;  has  made  California  and 
Columbia  and  Australia  to  glow  in  our  diadem ;  has  estab- 
lished the  electric  current  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific ; 
has  furnished  ships  and  steam-engines  for  the  Sultan  and  the 
Czar ;  has  taught  the  world  to  build  iron-clads,  and  to  destroy 
them ;  has  consecrated  genius  and  art  to  a  million-handed 
machinerv.  which  draws  out  the  treasures  of  the  earth  and 
moulds  them  into  all  the  conceptions  of  a  grand  civil  econ- 
omy. What  an  epic  of  national  unity  is  this  of  our  art  and 
power !  And  how  it  mantles  on  the  cheek  of  American  life 
and  American  nationality  !  Who  of  you  does  not  love  to 
gaze  in  the  fires  of  ancient  mythology,  and  recall  the  olden 
chivalry  of  the  sea  ?  But  this  our  epic  breathes  a  loftier  and 
more  heroic  romance.  It  furnishes  no  commercial  Argonauts 
to  feel  their  lazy  way  over  the  Euxine  for  a  golden  fleece,  but 
it  beats  music  to  a  thousand  steam-engines  traversing  three 
temperatures  of  its  inland  Nile ;  it  keeps  the  waters  of  five 
Mediterraneans  murmuring  with  its  argosies ;  it  has  founded 
States  on  both  sides  of  its  imperial  mountain,  and  laves  them 
with  waters  from  the  same  springs  that  flow  to  either  ocean ; 
it  has  thrown  t)pen  Japan,  and  is  at  work  upon  the  temper  of 
the  Celestial  Empire ;  it  has  strewn  the  shores  of  the  Polar 
seas  with  the  graves  of  its  maritime  martyrs ;  and,  since 
some  of  you  commenced  your  studies,  it  has  discovered  and 
opened  the  golden  gate  at  Panama,  and  interpreted  the  dream 
which  oppressed  Columbus  in  his  dying  hour. 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  EDUCATED  MAN,  ETC.      53 

Take  a  further  glance  at  the  uaity  of  our  historic  stages. 
You  will  begin  with  the  early  discoveries,  settlements,  coloni- 
zations. You  see  the  Puritans  rearing  the  ensign  of  a  religious 
organism  in  New  England ;  the  real  and  shabby  gentlemen 
starting  on  a  speculation  in  Virginia ;  the  French,  of  all  re- 
ligions and  of  none,  encamping  in  the  West ;  the  Huguenots, 
of  a  Christian  chivalry,  planting  a  hope  in  the  fartlier  South ; 

—  and  you  behold  them  extending  and  expanding  over  a 
hundred  years  towards  a  common  centre  of  colonial  power. 
Then  comes  the  next  and  more  appreciable  era,  —  the  colonial 
period,  —  full  of  individualities,  and  yet  of  commonalty  and 
unity.  The  story  is  too  familiar  for  repetition  :  how  for  fifty 
years  and  more  these  peoples,  religions,  interests,  races,  from 
their  various  sources  and  quadrangular  settlements,  gradually, 
but  with  all  the  prestige  of  destiny,  were  constantly  drawing 
nearer  and  nearer  to  a  centralization  of  colonies ;  how  the 
parentage  of  England  guided  and  protected  them,  and  while 
it  thought  of  their  limitation,  acted  all  the  while  for  their 
exaltation,  —  impressing  the  colonists  into  European  wars, 
but  thus  educating  them  for  another  war  which  was  to  come, 

—  giving  us  the  Washington  and  adjunct  heroes  that  no  other 
discipline  could  have  made.  And  then  comes  another  stage 
in  the  historic  continuity,  —  the  Revolutionary  period,  — 
about  which,  as  this  hour  is  short  and  is  no  part  of  the 
Fourth  of  July,  I  will  not  say  one  word.  Once  more,  and  we 
reach  the  historical  crystallization  in  which  under  a  con- 
stitutional Union  the  free  provinces  became  one,  —  as  the 
individualities  of  Greece  endeavored  not  quite  effectually  to 
be  when  Philip  and  Alexander  threatened  them  like  a  dark 
gathering  cloud,  —  as  the  provincial  individualities  of  Italy 
at  times  have  tried  all  in  vain  to  become.  The  work  was 
accomplished ;  the  States  became  a  unit ;  the  drama  was 
vindicated :  — 

' '  The  foul"  first  acts  already  past, 
A  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day." 

And  SO,  ever  since,  this  miracle  of  the  world  has  gone  for- 


54  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

ward.  In  seventy  years  the  Alleghanies  have  receded  to  the 
Father  of  Waters,  the  Rocky  Mountains  have  bowed  before 
the  spirit  of  the  Union  as  it  advanced  to  the  great  serene 
Pacific ;  a  broad,  active,  violent  nationality,  free,  impetuous, 
resistless,  conscious  of  the  power  of  unity  and  therefore 
ambitious,  has  brought  us  —  I  need  not  say  how,  for  it 
is  too  familiar  —  to  the  situation  of  the  homogeneous  re- 
public. 

And  thus  your  democratic  nationality,  whether  you  con- 
sider it  as  a  birth  under  the  new  pliilosophy  of  Bacon,  or  a 
growth  under  four  eras  of  logical  development  since,  stands 
before  you  isolated  from  all  the  analogies  of  history, — a 
colossal  product  out  of  tbe  cycles  of  Providence,  —  an  essen- 
tial flower  out  of  the  germinations  of  the  conflicts  and  fatigues 
of  the  race,  —  a  grand  national  personality,  moving  easily, 
naturally,  consciously,  to  its  destiny,  —  a  unity  in  its  origin, 
and  knitted  to  closer  unity  by  the  absolutism  of  its  own 
situation  and  the  lapse  of  its  time  and  its  strifes.  It  has 
recognized  at  all  times  its  members  and  its  parts,  but  has 
acted  at  all  times  as  a  whole.  Its  vitality,  instinct,  hope, 
are  all  its  own;  and  these,  combining  with  its  fleets  and 
armies,  with  the  thunders  of  its  ordnance  and  the  vespers 
of  its  religion,  have  never  ceased  to  give  that  challenge 
which  virtue  and  independence  offer  to  every  foreign  in- 
terloper or  intruder,  —  whether  the  continental  jailer  of 
France  or  the  great  Insular  hypocrite,  —  to  every  traitor 
leader,  whether  movimf  under  the  standard  of  the  Palmetto, 
or  the  Pelican  filthy  and  odious.  Against  them  all  we  have 
an  inheritance  to  defend. 

Think  next,  and  briefly,  of  this  nationality  in  its  diversity. 
All  leading  nations  are  heterogeneous.  The  identity  of  a 
nation  is  always  more  or  less  disturbed  by  a  variety  of  sub- 
ject races,  alien  populations,  and  discordant  tongues.  France 
is  not  without  this  element,  and  the  British  Empire  is  alive 
witli  its  perturbations.  Her  drum-beat  around  the  globe 
strikes  the  ear  of  every  religion,  her  crown  has  to  be  adapted 


THE  EELATIONS   OF   THE   EDUCATED   MAN,   ETC.  55 

to  every  form  of  law,  and  the  pavement  of  her  court  is  tessel- 
lated with  memorials  of  every  species  of  humankind.  We 
encounter  this  element  here,  but  it  masters  itself  under  the 
influence  of  that  spirit  of  personal  liberty  which  welds  all 
classes  and  races.  Other  and  greater  causes  of  diversity  are 
a  part  of  our  peril.  You  have  thought  —  and  I  hardly  ought 
to  remind  you  —  how  great  a  trouble  it  has  been,  that  these 
States  were  all  separate  in  their  origin,  and  have  been  so  over 
the  whole  range  of  their  history,  some  of  them  two  hundred 
and  forty  years  ;  that  in  all  this  time  provincial  idiosyncra- 
sies have  become  indurated,  the  pride  of  local  annals  and  the 
passion  of  a  local  attachment  have  grown  to  be  a  first  nature, 
—  counties,  boroughs,  towns,  being  the  only  thing  known  to 
many,  and  the  individual  State  being  the  idea  consecrate  of 
even  great  and  cultured  men ;  tliat  over  all  this  period,  save 
only  the  space  of  two  short  foreign  wars,  these  millions  of 
people  in  their  daily  thought  and  life,  whether  they  were 
establishing  their  schools  or  building  their  churches,  or  mus- 
tering their  militia  or  cultivating  their  arts,  or  paying  their 
taxes  or  burying  their  dead,  have  felt  chiefly  the  visible, 
gentle,  guiding  hand  of  the  home-provincial  government  as  a 
tutelary  divinity,  but  have  seen  the  overshadowing  national 
parentage  only  afar ;  that  even  in  war  the  State  flag  holds  its 
place,  and  asserts  its  speciality,  and  vaunts  its  particular 
renown,  while  the  national  bugle  gives  the  only  peal  to  the 
strife.  All  these  details,  and  many  more,  belong  to  the  fact 
which  stands  imperishable,  strikes  its  roots  farther  back  and 
lower  down  than  the  Constitution,  and  drops  its  fruit,  some- 
times bitter  and  sometimes  sweet,  over  the  whole  plane  of 
our  historic  union,  —  the  fact  that  the  State  is  older  than  the 
nation,  that  it  attracts  to  itself  the  first  thoughts,  the  ten- 
derest  memories,  the  most  palpable  allegiance.  We  think 
we  can  forget  this  fact  now  when  all  the  tribes  are  in  arms 
for  a  common  cause  ;  but  it  is  not  quite  forgotten  yet,  when 
comparisons  or  jealousies  pass  now,  even  now,  between  the 
West  and  the  East,  whilst  the  sons  of  both  die  side  by  side, 


56  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

in  the  same  trenches.  Our  fathers  could  not  escape  it  while 
they  were  passing  through  the  first  terrible  baptism.  At  that 
early  day  ^taiism  was  the  bane  of  nationality ;  it  reared  its 
crest  among  the  conscript  fatliers  of  the  Continental  Congress, 
as  John  Adams  and  others  have  told  us  too  well.  And  how 
it  broke  out  in  the  presence  of  the  sorrowful  countenance  of 
Washington  in  the  Constitutional  Convention,  one  State  de- 
daring  itself  ready  to  appeal  to  a  foreign  sword  for  its  rights, 
and  how  the  adjustment  came  at  last  only  from  the  connsels  of 
Madison  and  Franklin,  the  journals  and  traditions  apprise  us 
too  sadly  ;  and  how  it  has  under  one  form  or  another  continued 
since  to  vex  the  whole  and  humiliate  the  North,  our  memo- 
ries are  laden  to  repletion  and  our  hearts  to  aching.  These 
diversities  have  taken  their  afdnities  and  have  crystallized  at 
length  around  two  forms,  —  State  rights  and  chattel  slavery, 
—  the  latter  gradually  drawing  to  itself  the  former,  and  now 
confronting  the  unit  of  our  power  for  the  last  time.  To  rec- 
oncile these  diversities  with  a  conceded  nationalism,  concession 
and  compromise  li^xve  levied  their  tribute  on  the  ingenuity  of 
statesmen,  and  more  than  once  have  dropped  the  plummet  to 
the  depths  of  human  degradation.  The  test  will  be  applied 
again.  We  have  now  reached  the  ultimate  struggle  between 
unity  and  diversity  in  our  system  of  national  life.  The  choice 
is  before  us.  Compromise,  which  between  right  and  wrong 
means  the  surrender  of  the  right,  if  assented  to  in  the  super- 
lati\'e  degree  to  our  shame,  might  possibly  yet  herald  the  old 
Union  back,  and  set  our  nationality  moving  again  in  the 
sphere  of  its  weakness,  and  crown  slavery  with  the  national 
jewels,  and  place  the  architects  of  treason  on  their  accus- 
tomed tripods  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  and  confer  upon  the 
free  millions  a'bricf  term  of  peace,  in  which  to  contemplate 
America  arched  with  the  graves  of  their  sons  to  accomplish 
sucli  a  result.  Rather  than  that,  please  God !  welcome  any 
other  fortune  which  war  may  bring  in  its  sad,  long  train. 

Some  of  you  pass   into   the   activities   of  life  while  the 
heavens  over  us  thus  frown.     The  love  of  peace  is  natural ; 


THE  KELATIONS  OF  THE  EDUCATED  MAN,  ETC.      57 

and  peace  is  greatly  needed.  But  you  do  not  doubt  that  peace 
must  have  virtue  and  honor,  or  confusion  and  war  are  better. 
You  will  not  forget  a  lesson  of  your  classics,  that  humiliating 
compromises  and  corrupt  coalitions  have  sometimes  marked  a 
nation  in  the  later  stages  of  its  degeneracy.  I  feel  sure  that 
you  will  be  brouglit  to  this  trial.  Two  or  three  times  during 
the  war,  signs  have  appeared  in  the  sky.  I  do  not  know  how 
much  of  exact  authenticity  may  be  attached  to  recent  nebulous 
movements  and  nebulous  characters  ;  but  when  Mr.  Jefferson 
Davis  sends  his  vicegerent  to  seek  diplomacy  at  Washington, 
and  the  arch-traitor  of  New  York  proposes  in  Congress  an 
armistice  and  a  mission  to  Richmond,  and  from  the  rookery 
of  unclean  birds  on  the  Canadian  cliff  beyond  the  cataract  a 
new  brood  starts  forth  to  shriek  and  decoy,  we  may  well 
enough  suppose  that  there  is  some  meaning  in  it  all.  These 
seeming  questions  of  amateur  diplomatists,  whether  cunning 
or  foolish,  we  may  safely  trust  to  the  sagacity  and  intuition 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States ;  and  all  else  let  us 
meanwhile  confide  to  Grant  and  Sherman.  And  yet,  these 
tests  of  seductive  and  delusive  compromise,  meaning  either  a 
dissolution  of  this  Confederacy,  or  the  restoration  of  the  old 
masters  to  intensified  despotism,  are  likely  to  try  you,  I  pray 
leave  to  remind  you  of  one  of  the  parallels  of  history  ;  for  you 
will  quite  surely  see  in  such  demonstrations,  when  they  occur, 
the  presence  of  men  of  your  own  section  and  men  of  States  in 
rebellion.  You  will  not  forget  that  Octavius  was  marching 
to  encounter  Antony  and  Lepidus  at  the  very  moment  when 
a  meeting  for  a  coalition  between  them  had  already  been  con- 
certed. The  show  of  war  went  on,  while  the  preparations 
had  already  been  conceived  to  apportion  the  provinces  and 
the  honors  ;  the  illustration  is  apparent  and  the  analogy  needs 
no  explanation.  They  met  and  accommodated  on  an  island  of 
the  Ehenus,  as  the  modern  conspirators  would  meet  and  ac- 
commodate on  the  Potomac  or  the  Eappahannock.  The  last 
of  the  terms  of  compromise  agreed  upon  by  the  Triumvirate 
was  the  proscription  and  death  of  certain  prominent  friends ; 


58  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCIL 

it  was  difficult,  but  each  at  length  consented  to  tlie  sacri- 
fice of  some  of  the  best  of  his  adherents,  as  our  compromis- 
sorial  ambassadors  would  consent  to  impale  tlie  liberties  of 
their  country  and  apply  the  attainder  of  proscription  to  the 
representative  men,  if  not  the  representative  States,  that  have 
stood  by  the  just  cause.  It  behooves  you  to  mark  the  fate  of 
a  scholar  who  hesitated  and  vacillated,  —  who  believed  in 
Eome  and  her  liberty,  but  thought  too  much  and  too  long  of 
the  honors  of  office.  The  head  of  Cicero  was  fixed  upon  the 
rostra  between  the  two  hands,  —  "a  sad  spectacle  to  the  city, 
which  drew  tears  from  every  eye." 

And  now  permit  me  to  recall  you  to  the  common  duty  of 
maintaining  the  unity  of  this  empire.  The  difficulties  are 
grave  and  many.  They  are  enhanced  by  the  philosopliy  of 
our  system,  which  is  freighted  with  fraternal  loves  and  fra- 
ternal antagonisms ;  by  a  long  history  and  a  large  experience 
which  liave  taught  us  too  frequently  a  discordance  of  attach- 
ments and  of  policies,  but  mainly,  and  as  a  whole,  the  ne- 
cessity of  one  life,  one  hope,  one  glory.  Above  and  around 
all  these  civil  diversities  stands  tlie  majestic  edifice  of  Ameri- 
can nationality,  raised  by  the  valor  and  wisdom  of  our  fathers, 
and  connecting  these  provincialities  and  dependencies  with 
one  supreme  whole,  more  powerful,  more  free,  more  happy, 
than  the  separate  fragments  could  hope  to  be  if  living  to  the 
end  of  time ;  and  it  is  to  the  subordination  of  provincial 
independencies  that  the  grandeur  of  American  citizenship  all 
over  the  globe  owes  its  existence.  In  the  name  of  that  right 
to  NATIONAL  UNITY  we  accept  the  necessity  of  the  hour ;  and, 
perceiving  the  nucleus  around  which  all  these  elements  of 
diversity  and  mischief  have  gathered  at  last,  we  will  direct 
our  policies  of  peace  and  of  war  to  the  end  that  it  shall  be 
removed  forever  from  all  connection  with  the  government 
which  it  has  contaminated  and  the  nationality  which  it  has 
put  on  the  peril  of  its  life.  Nearly  two  years  ago  this  policy 
was  pronounced  by  the  President.  Prior  to  that  event  the 
national  spirit  faltered  and  relucted.     Piut  the  appearance  of 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  EDUCATED  MAN,  ETC.      59 

the  first  Proclamation  of  Freedom,  while  it  chained  the 
thrones  of  Europe  to  their  neutrality,  electrified  and  saved 
the  heart  of  America.  Her  nationality  at  once  beat  to  the 
instincts  of  courage  and  hope,  and 

"  Suddenly  embued  with  holy  grace. 
Like  the  transition  of  some  watery  cloud 
In  passing  o'er  the  moon's  refulgent  disc, 
Glowed  with  new  life." 

The  firm  President  adheres  to  it,  with  no  retracing  steps.  To 
the  astonished  vision  of  the  wretched  cabal  of  the  Clifton 
House,  his  purpose,  his  promulgation,  shines  forth  in  all  the 
radiance  of  the  rainbow,  which  sways  only  to  take  the  rays  of 
the  sun  and  lives  among  those  eternal  thunders. 

"  Any  proposition  which  embraces  the  restoration  of  peace, 
the  integrity  of  the  whole  Union,  and  the  abandonment  of 
Slavery  ! "  Be  this  our  ritual  and  our  liturgy.  Do  you  tell 
me  we  cannot  succeed  under  it  ?  I  tell  you  we  cannot  suc- 
ceed under  any  other.  Let  us  take  the  decree  and  with  the 
old  colors  wrap  it  to  our  heart.  Better  this  Nationality 
should  wander  among  the  spirits  of  the  lost  republics,  and  go 
through  the  ages  to  rustic  music  with  the  uncomplaining 
shade  of  John  Brown,  with  not  another  victory  on  earth,  if 
only  it  may  die  here  within  the  pale  of  the  favor  of  God,  — 
rather  than  it  should  sell  its  liberty,  its  honor,  and  its  con- 
science to  a  rebel  in  arms  or  to  an  enemy  wearing  the  garb  of 
a  friend  nearer  home. 

3.  It  remains  that  I  speak  of  the  special  duty  of  the  edu- 
cated man,  as  a  controlling  popular  agency,  to  enlighten  and 
preserve  the  national  spirit.  Has  not  Washington  said  that, 
"in  proportion  as  the  Union  rests  on  public  opinion,  that 
opinion  must  be  enlightened "  ?  Under  the  laws  which 
govern  that  opinion,  your  instrumentality  begins  early,  and 
increases  as  the  sphere  of  your  life  enlarges.  Wilberforce 
wrote  for  the  public  press  at  the  same  time  that  "he  excelled 
all  the  other  boys  in  his  scholarship ; "  and  at  tw^enty-seven 
he  said  his  mind  was  oppressed  with  "the  great  scenes  of 


CO  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

bondage,"  and  that  "  God  liad  set  before  him  the  reformation 
of  his  country."  The  very  boys  in  Home  were  obliged  to 
learn  the  twelve  tables  by  heart,  carmen  necessariuvi.  The 
sons  of  the  universities,  all  who  think,  speak,  write,  —  to 
them  a  free  and  intelligent  people  offer  the  attentive  ear  and 
the  confiding  mind. 

In  the  complicated  action  of  society  we  are  directed  largely 
by  our  positive  knowledge,  yet  perhaps  in  a  greater  degree  by 
our  confidence  in  others.    Faith,  —  shall  I  say  ?  —  more  fre- 
quently than  philosophy,  governs  the  conduct  of  states.     Our 
venerable  religion  lives  upon  so  simple  a  I'act  as  that.      The 
analogy  extends  and  pervades  all  life.    Thus  it  becomes  a  law 
of  our  social  progress,  that  the  leaders  of  the  general  mind 
wield  their  influence  by  a  twofold  rule  of  efficacy.     The  first 
is  that  by  which  electric  thought,  sentiment,  inspiration,  pro- 
ceeding from  those  who  constitute  the  intellectual  advance 
guard,  descend  through  the  medium  of  print  and  speech  to 
the   current    of   mind  below,  — "  brightening  and  i^urifying 
throudi  the  air  of  common  life."      The  other  rule  is  that 
which  impels  men,  on  their  instinct  and  experience,  to  accept 
others  as  their  guides,  their  standards.     This  is  of  more  ex- 
tended application  among  a  free  people  than  a  favorite  theory 
of  public  flattery  is  willing  to  proclaim.      That  is  a  public 
opinion  in  health  and  vigor  which,  while  it  thinks  for  itself, 
also  follows  the  light  of  its  lawgivers,  scholars,  statesmen. 
Such  a  public  opinion  moves  with  power.     Greatly  has  this 
appeared  in  those  countries  of  such  popular  organization  that 
educated  mind  has  come  into  immediate  contact  with  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  state.     On  the  one  hand,  this  faith  in 
others,  and  on  the  other,  this  frequent  direct  intercourse  of 
elevated  minds  with  the  common  understanding,  gave  to  the 
gallant  little  republic  of  Athens  her  seal  of  renown.     Eeceiv- 
ing  in  trust  the  lessons  of  her  noble  lawgiver,  and  bringing 
her  ear  to  the  voices  of  those  who  in  public  speech  expounded 
them,  she  became  great  as  she  was  free,  and  ascended  rapidly 
the  pathway  of  fame.     For  a  century  and  a  half  her  proud 


THE  KELATIONS  OF  THE  EDUCATED  MAN,  ETC.      61 

and  lofty  head  never  drooped.  And  in  the  gradual  with- 
drawal of  her  trust  in  the  exalted  genius  and  patriotic  spirit 
which  remained  steadfast  longer  than  she,  we  must  date  the 
decline  and  decay  from  which  at  last  the  wisdom  of  her 
Phocion  and  the  startling  notes  of  her  Demosthenes  sought 
in  vain  to  arouse  her. 

Ours  is  a  frovernment  of  Grecian  model.  This  heritage 
has  come  to  us  out  of  the  master  spirits  who  commanded  the 
confidence  of  the  people  in  the  early  days.  The  Eevolutionary 
period  first  dawned  in  their  souls.  Adams,  Lee,  Witherspoon, 
others,  trained  in  the  conflicts  of  the  university,  strengthened 
on  all  the  fields  of  professional  labor,  moulded,  directed,  or- 
ganized, the  reason  and  the  passions  of  the  colonists  to  their 
final  determination.  In  the  constitutional  period  which  fol- 
lowed, Madison  in  Virginia,  Hamilton  in  New  York,  Ames  in 
Massachusetts,  known  as  masters  of  the  collected  wisdom  of 
ages,  were  taken  in  confidence  as  pilots  on  a  stormy  sea. 
Always  has  it  been  so  here.  Americans  —  no  people  more 
—  respect  the  closets  and  alcoves  and  galleries ;  and  those 
whom  they  behold  coming  out  of  them,  with  modesty  but 
heroism,  with  learning  but  not  pedantry,  with  dead  languages 
but  living  sympathies,  with  bosoms  heaving  not  with  the  dry 
cough  of  damp  and  mould  but  with  sentiments  generous 
enough  for  nations  and  humanity,  —  scholars,  orators,  thinkers, 
men,  soldiers,  —  all  such  they  clasp  with  hooks  of  steel,  and 
perish  never  but  in  their  embrace.  These  are  the  men  who 
do  more  than  their  own  thinking,  wherever  assigned,  —  often 
quite  as  effectually  in  private  as  on  the  grander  public  stage. 
Cicero  at  Tusculum  exercised  the  finest  influence  of  his  life ; 
Everett  in  his  retirement  furnishes  inspiration  for  loyal  mil- 
lions at  home  and  in  the  field. 

Never  in  any  country,  as  in  ours,  has  the  educated  mind 
been  such  a  "bright,  particular  star."  Never  in  any  country, 
as  in  ours,  has  the  heart  of  a  people  turned  to  liberalized  and 
lettered  men.  I  have  alluded  to  the  epoch  of  the  Revolution 
which  was  guided  by  them,  to  the  epoch  of  the  Constitution 


62  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK 

which  rested  so  chiefly  upon  them.  But  after  that,  when 
parties  formed,  and  the  Eepublic  divided  altogether  and  in- 
tensely under  two,  Jefferson  did  the  thinking  of  the  one,  and 
Hamilton  of  the  other,  as  no  men  before  by  only  intellectual 
efficiency  controlled  a  people  having  a  government.  Of 
Jefferson  —  so  vital  to-day  is  this  country  with  the  authority 
of  his  learning,  his  philosophy,  and  his  politics,  all  now  re- 
flected from  his  nine  printed  volumes  and  a  thousand  tradi- 
tions beside  —  I  need  speak  no  more ;  but  of  Hamilton,  one 
word.  You  know  how  he  commenced,  coming  out  of  Colum- 
bia College,  almost  without  a  beard,  and  firing  New  York  to 
arms  before  his  name  was  known.  That  prescient  intuition, 
that  great  judgment,  that  clear  reason,  that  cultured  soul, 
went  onward  and  upward,  counselled  Washington  for  twenty 
years  and  till  he  passed  away ;  and  when  Hamilton  died,  a 
young  man  still,  in  thirteen  States  men  wrote  and  spoke  and 
wept  as  if  they  had  lost  faith  in  their  understanding.  He 
was  out  of  office  when  he  fell,  sixty  years  ago,  the  finest 
genius  of  all  American  generations  thus  far,  second  perhaps 
to  Edwards  as  a  dialectician,  but  first  of  publicists.  The 
tidings  of  his  untimely  death  in  its  rapid  spread  cast  a  pallor 
over  half  a  people  who  leaned  upon  his  intellect  and  believed 
in  his  conclusions.  The  command  of  an  intellectual  lead- 
ership had  been  terminated.  He  was  scholar  and  student 
to  the  last.  Tradition  has  said  that,  when  preparing  the 
Treasury  .papers  which  placed  his  fiime  by  the  side  of  Necker 
and  Pitt,  his  early  studies  were  still  his  guide, —  that  he  held 
in  one  hand  his  coffee  for  a  stimulant,  and  in  tlie  other  the 
old  thumbed  Euclid  for  the  trimmer  of  the  celestial  light. 

I  am  speaking  of  the  power  of  educated  mind  in  a  couutry 
like  ours.  Pass-to  a  generation  later,  and  think  how  two  oth- 
ers ruled  their  period,  and  educated  our  nationality,  through 
a  term  of  thirty  years,  down  to  the  brink  on  which  we  stand 
and  shrink  at  this  moment. 

A  scholar  of  the  South,  student  of  history,  in  utmost 
mastery  of  the  mental  processes,  darting  his  thought  like  the 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  EDUCATED  MAN,  ETC.      63 

flash  of  the  lightning  into  the  mind  of  all  that  geographical 
section,  espousing  theories  never  to  abandon  them,  and  im- 
pressing them  upon  the  large  school  of  his  admirers  with  a 
clear,  frosty,  crispy  logic,  —  Calhoun  has  brought  half  the 
geography  of  this  Union  to  confront  us  in  arms.  Lesser  lu- 
minaries have  reflected  his  light ;  but  the  source,  the  power, 
is  his.  For  myself,  I  never  read  his  published  works  without 
yielding  an  unwilling  admiration  to  the  charm  of  the  fasci- 
nation. Their  influence  on  the  mind  and  heart  of  millions 
in  the  South  has  been  supreme.     This  war  is  his  war. 

Turn  now  to  another  luminary  in  the  constellation  of  the 
North,  —  our  own  Webster.  From  the  same  discipline  of 
studies,  of  more  learning,  of  equal  logic,  of  larger  compre- 
hensiveness, less  demonstrative  but  more  convincing,  not 
forgetful  of  the  members  of  his  country  but  thoughtful  rather 
of  the  whole,  regarding  this  Union  not  as  a  compact  of 
fragments  but  as  a  nation  of  parts  transmuted  and  transfused 
into  one  nationality,  he  too  has  been  the  teacher  of  a  people. 
Perceiving  in  him  such  a  consummation  of  qualities  as  comes 
only  of  the  triad  union  of  learning  and  statesmanship  and 
jurisprudence,  and  that  only  in  the  intervals  of  ages,  —  as 
here  and  there  a  solemn  cathedral  stands  apart,  rich  witli  the 
spoils  of  time,  —  the  people  of  the  North  have  taken  a  large 
part  of  their  education  in  public  law  and  civil  study  from 
his  lips.  In  his  own  language  applied  to  another,  they  have 
received  his  statement  as  argument,  and  his  inference  as 
demonstration.  They  have  been  convinced,  and  have  be- 
lieved and  assented,  because  it  has  been  gratifying,  delightful, 
to  think  and  feel  and  believe  in  unison  with  an  intellect  of 
so  evident  superiority.  He  has  been  our  instructor  for  the 
Union.  As  to  the  relations  of  the  citizen  with  the  govern- 
ment he  has  taught  a  generation  of  the  Eepublic,  though 
received  chiefly  by  a  generation  of  the  North.  Those  in- 
structions have  flowed  through  the  general  mind  upon  such 
a  current  of  deep  nationality  and  pellucid  order  and  beauty 
of  language,  —  the  highest  style  of  poetry   playing  all   the 


G4  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER  H.    BULLOCK. 

while  amonc:  the  oaken  branches  of  his  immortal  Saxon, — 
that  they  affect  the  mental  habitudes  of  our  time  long  after 
his  eyes  have  been  sealed,  and  are  mirrored  forth  from  all 
our  minds,  as  the  Northern  skies  from  the  forest  lakes. 

There  can  be  but  one  Hamilton,  Calhoun,  or  Webster.  But 
thousands  have  formed  their  character  within  the  same  halls 
and  groves  as  these  our  leaders,  have  brought  their  mind 
into  subjection  to  the  same  stern  studies  and  severe  techni- 
calities of  the  schools,  have  cast  their  thought  and  expression 
in  the  same  mould  of  those  languages  which  hold  the  rich 
mines  of  the  world,  have  wrestled  the  faculties  with  mathe- 
matical struggles,  have  opened  their  imagination  to  the 
ennobling  impulses  and  stimulations,  and  have  crowned  the 
whole  with  the  choral  harmonies  of  the  Christian  faith. 
These  make  the  scholars  and  the  men.  Their  prudent  coun- 
sels, their  winged  words,  will  be  immortal.  Practised  in 
the  gymnasium  of  exact  science,  plucking  riches  from  the 
illuminated  halls  of  the  classic  ages,  chaining  their  thought 
to  the  medium  of  a  precise  language  in  which  words  are 
things,  reaching  out  over  years  of  mental  labor  to  apprehend 
the  mutual  relations  of  all  knowledge,  mounting  to  the  sublime 
theorems  engraved  in  the  heavens,  and  coming  back  to  toil 
and  study  and  struggle  among  men,  —  thus  informed,  fur- 
nished, liberalized,  exercised,  invigorated,  —  these  are  they 
who  are  wanted  for  an  intellectual  heroism  fitted  for  the 
shocks  of  this  present  time. 

Gentlemen,  I  cannot  see  far  enough  to  define  the  boundaries 
of  the  educated  man's  influence.  But  I  have  thought  that  we 
could  bring  to  these  revisited  halls  a  united  testimony  to  the 
imperious  necessity,  in  the  present  aspect  of  our  public  affairs, 
of  the  aid  which  is  to  be  found  in  tlie  authority  and  influence 
of  literary  character.  The  whole  boundless  continent  is  ours, 
and  belongs  to  us  and  our  flag.  In  its  azure  and  starry  glories 
it  is  —  it  is  a  fit  object  of  the  scholar's  homage,  worthy  of  his 
life  and  his  death.  Ours  is  a  nobler  heritage  than  ever  cast 
its  shadows  upon  the  iEgean  or  Adriatic.      In  the  hearts  of 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  EDUCATED  MAN,  ETC.      65 

its  yoiitli  let  this  Union  be  enshrined  forever.  Convened 
upon  this  occasion  of  our  fellowship,  let  us  pledge  ourselves 
to  its  preservation.  It  is  on  the  perilous  ridge  of  battle. 
When  others  shake  their  heads  or  smother  their  speech,  let 
us  in  preference  adopt  the  grand  words  of  the  Grecian  orator, 
whom  you  love  so  well,  in  tlie  great  oration  which  survives 
the  ruins  of  Grecian  art :  "No  man  ever  saw  me  smile  at  the 
success  of  the  Lacedaemonians,  or  sorrow  over  that  of  the 
Atlienians."  This  American  nationality !  Let  the  marvels 
of  its  divine  origin,  the  patriotic  interpositions  that  have  pre- 
served it,  become  endeared  to  us  like  classic  song.  Let  us 
prove  true  to  it  in  our  own  brief  time,  and  invest  its  future, 
to  us  all  unknown,  with  the  ideal  forms  of  life  and  hope  and 
beauty.  Let  us  this  evening  —  our  last  wish,  our  last  prayer 
—  invoke  around  it  the  triune  divinities  that  have  watched 
over  it  thus  far,  —  Eeligion,  Liberty,  and  Law,  —  and,  under 
the  providence  of  God,  may  it  be  preserved  in  its  integrity 
and  its  grandeur  for  us  and  for  the  generations  that  shall 
come  after. 


SPEECH 

before  the  republican  state  convention  at  worcester,  sept.  15,  1864. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Convention  : 

Your  kindness  embarrasses  me.  I  could  not  do  justice  to 
my  own  sensibilities,  and  at  the  same  time  give  expression  to 
them  in  a  public  manner  with  decorum  and  propriety,  and  in 
a  way  adequate  to  your  kindness.  First  of  all,  gentlemen, 
permit  me  to  congratulate  you,  as  many  a  time  within  the 
last  two  weeks  I  have  felicitated  myself,  that  here  in  Massa- 
chusetts we  are  in  harmony  among  ourselves.  Speaking 
merely  in  a  local  or  personal  sense,  this  would  be,  at  the 
best,  of  only  transient  account,  and  therefore  of  secondary 
importance.  But  since  we  are  a  part  of  the  grand  national 
confederacy  of  this  Union,  whose  independent  existence  hangs 
suspended  at  this  moment  not  only  from  the  point  of  the 
bayonet  but  upon  the  wisdom  of  counsel  as  well,  I  hail  it 
as  among  the  best  portents  of  this  hour,  that  here,  at'  the 
present  moment  as  in  times  past,  our  Union  is  perfect  as  our 
cause  is  just. 

What  though  there  be  some  slight  discrepancies  between 
the  counsels  of  Richmond  and  the  Clifton  House  and  Chicago, 
and  a  little  straggling  along  their  whole  line,  —  what  though 
there  be  some  sliglit  divergences  of  opinion  among  them  as 
to  whether  the  loyal  armies  should  ignominiously  surrender 
before  an  armistice  or  afterward,  —  what  tliough  they  slightly 
differ  among  themselves  as  to  whether  their  candidate  should 


SPEECH   BEFORE   THE   KEPUBLICAN   STATE   CONVENTION.      67 

stand  upon  an  open,  undisguised  peace  platform,  or  on  a 
piece  of  framework  and  joinery  over  wliicli  the  palmetto 
shall  float  at  the  top  and  the  Union  jack  at  half-mast  below. 
Let  them  adjust  all  these  questions  among  themselves.  Be 
it  our  duty,  as  I  understand  that  it  has  been  your  pleasure 
and  mine  this  morning,  to  close  up  our  ranks  here,  to  resist 
the  foe  at  every  stage  and  in  every  degree,  to  snuff  the  scent 
of  treason  everywhere  and  at  all  times,  whether  it  shall  be 
palpable  and  visible  like  a  cloud,  or  spread  like  an  impal- 
pable poison  in  the  shadowy  forms  of  speech  all  the  way  from 
the  wigwam  (which  they  have  counterfeited)  round  to  New 
York.  I  rejoice,  Mr.  President  and  fellow-citizens,  that  if  we 
ever  had  any  differences,  of  which  I  have  had  no  knowledge, 
we  have  assembled  here  to-day  not  to  revive  but  to  bury 
them  in  the  depth  of  paramount  patriotism  and  a  common 
interest.  In  the  overwhelming  exigency  that  is  upon  us, 
union  among  ourselves  is  the  highest  of  all  duties,  in  the 
most  solemn  of  all  causes ;  and  to  this  sublime  account  of 
nationality,  to  this  august  reckoning  of  the  friendships  of 
loyal  men,  I  desire  in  the  most  cordial  manner  to  unite  with 
you  in  welcoming  to  our  standard,  to  our  association,  to  our 
attestation,  the  influence,  the  name,  and  the  patriotism  of 
Edward  Everett. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  honored  some  three  months 
ago  by  the  Union  Eepublicans  of  Massachusetts  as  one  of 
their  delegates  to  the  convention  at  Baltimore,  and  by  my 
colleagues  there  as  their  chairman,  for  myself,  and  in  their 
behalf,  I  can  stand  here  now  and  look  you  in  the  face,  and 
proudly  challenge  your  approval  of  our  doings. 

I  call  upon  my  colleagues,  many  of  whom  are  present,  to 
bear  me  witness  that  no  convention  ever  assembled  on  this 
continent,  of  the  same  popular  characteristics  or  organization, 
more  free  from  official  or  personal  influences,  or  more  clearly 
reflecting  the  heart  and  the  judgment  of  the  American  people. 
No  assembly  ever  convened  upon  this  continent  under  a  more 
impressive  sense  of  public  accountability  and  responsibility, 


68  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

and  none  certainly  ever  manifested  greater  indications  of 
harmony  and  of  enthusiasm.  Sir,  history  records  no  such 
harmony  except  in  connection  with  the  dark  houi's  of  im- 
pending national  fate.  It  was  grateful  to  our  hearts  as 
Massachusetts  men  to  mingle  our  chorus  and  vours  with  the 
voices  that  came  up  to  us  from  twenty  six  or  seven  States  of 
this  Union,  in  that  city  whose  streets  had  been  stained  by 
the  blood  of  our  own  citizens,  —  in  that  city,  sir,  whose  gates 
having  been  closed  had  also  been  opened,  never  again  to  be 
closed,  by  Massachusetts  arms. 

It  was  especially  grateful  to  our  hearts  as  your  delegates 
that  we  sat  by  the  side  of  the  delegation  from  the  State  of 
Maryland,  whose  votes  in  every  instance  were  recorded  in 
unison  with  ours.  You  will  not  think  it  strange,  my  friends, 
that  I  thought  of  the  19th  of  April,  1861,  and  that  it  seemed 
to  me  and  my  colleagues  upon  that  occasion,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  poet  of  nature,  that  the  "  whirligig  of  time  had 
brought  round  its  revenge."  It  was  one  of  those  revenues 
which  sometimes  follow  in  the  train  of  war,  and  which  bless 
the  corning  and  the  departing  generations  of  mankind  with 
the  glory  and  the  immortality  of  freedom ;  because,  my 
friends,  while  your  delegates  were  deliberating  there  in  quest 
of  the  best  methods  and  the  best  men  that  should  conduct 
this  Union  to  a  triumph  over  all  its  present  troubles,  Mary- 
land, nay,  the  city  of  Baltimore  herself,  was  at  that  moment 
deliberating  at  Annapolis  over  that  universal  emancipation 
which,  awaiting  only  the  verdict  of  her  peojile  a  few  weeks 
hence,  has  been  consummated  by  the  people  of  that  Common- 
wealth. I  said  to  a  citizen  of  Baltimore,  a  native  of  Massa- 
chusetts, but  a  long  time  a  resident  of  that  adopted  State, 
"  Sir,  the  blood  of  Massachusetts  has  wet  your  pavements  not 
in  vain."  And  his  reply  to  me  was,  "Tell  the  people  of 
Massachusetts  "  —  and  I  now  cive  the  message  to  vou,  men 
of  Lowell  and  men  of  Lawrence  —  "  tell  the  people  of  Massa- 
chusetts that  those  monuments  to  the  early  martyrs  of  the 
war  for  the  restoration  of  the  Constitution  and  the  Union, 


SPEECH  BEFORE  THE  REPUBLICAN  STATE  CONVENTION.   69 

to  be  erected  by  the  joint  enterprise  and  liberality  of  the 
Commonwealth  and  of  the  people  of  her  cities,  will,  in  all  the 
future  ages  of  this  Eepublic,  bear  the  same  radiant  inscription 
with  the  monuments  of  the  capital  city  of  Maryland." 

And  now,  Mr.  President  and  fellow-citizens,  compare  our 
work  with  that  of  our  adversaries.  Compare  the  platform  of 
Baltimore  with  the  platform  of  Chicago.  I  am  not  going  to 
detain  you  with  a  recapitulation  of  the  cliaracteristics  of 
either.  For  myself,  I  desire  to  go  on  appeal  to  the  American 
people,  with  no  other  issue  than  that  which  is  presented  by 
these  comparative  and  diverse  systems  of  political  ethics. 
The  one  breathes  undying  hostility  to  the  public  enemies,  — 
the  other  inspires  hostility  only  against  its  own  Govern- 
ment ;  the  one  swears  to  sustain  the  Government  in  quelling 
the  rebellion  by  force,  —  the  other  conceals  the  fact  that 
there  is  any  rebellion  existing  at  all ;  the  one  sustains  the 
Government  in  its  fixed  and  irreversible  determination  to 
accept  no  compromise  and  to  offer  no  terms  of  peace  not 
based  upon  the  conquest  or  the  unconditional  surrender  of 
the  armies  of  treason,  —  the  other  abjectly  invites  any  com- 
promise whatsoever,  however  revolting  to  the  manhood  of 
the  nation,  and  opens  the  ghastly  doubt  whether  separation 
itself  should  not  be  accepted  as  the  price  of  armistice  and 
of  peace.  The  Baltimore  Convention  resolves  that  the  na- 
tional safety  demands  the  utter  and  complete  extirpation  of 
slavery  from  the  soil  of  the  Eepublic ;  the  Chicago  Con- 
vention by  its  acquiescence,  by  its  collateral  issues,  by  its 
tone  and  temper,  by  all  that  it  says,  by  all  that  it  does  not 
say,  places  Southern  slavery  as  the  brightest  gem  in  our 
coronet  of  empire,  and  would  restore  that  dynasty  which 
before  the  war  was  a  rule  of  unvarying  humiliation,  and 
which,  if  now  replaced,  would  be  a  reign  of  intolerable  des- 
potism and  disgrace.  Your  delegates  at  Baltimore  offered 
their  thanks  and  yours  to  the  soldier  of  the  flag,  and  took 
the  oath  to  stand  by  him  unto  the  end,  to  the  last  of  their 
treasure  and  of  their  hearts ;  the  delegates  of  Chicago  offer 


70  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

their  sympathy  to  the  soldier  in  the  one  hand,  and  in  the 
other  hold  forth  to  him  a  welcome  to  an  infamy  that  would 
be  traditional  and  perpetual  hereafter. 

No  wonder,  fellow-citizens,  that  the  people  of  the  United 
States  are  rising  to  an  appreciation  of  the  differences  between 
these  diverse  systems  of  political  ethics.  Witness  the  result 
in  Vermont,  witness  the  result  in  Maine  ;  stand  ready  to 
witness  all  those  that  will  follow.  No  wonder  that  the 
brave  men  in  arms  repudiate  with  scorn  a  system  and  a 
creed  which  would  place  a  stigma  upon  the  name  of  every 
Union  warrior  living,  and  would  consign  the  name  of  the 
dying  to  the  execration  and  the  contempt  of  his  children  to 
the  remotest  posterity  !  Sir,  in  the  language  of  the  lamented 
Douglas,  —  the  last  public  words  ever  addressed  by  him  to 
mortal  ears,  spoken  to  his  fellow-citizens  in  the  wigwam  in 
Chicago,  in  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  originally  nomi- 
nated to  the  Presidency,  and  which,  as  I  have  before  re- 
marked, these  gentlemen  have  ridiculously  counterfeited,  — 
in  the  lano;ua2;e  of  the  lamented  DouGjlas,  "  There  are  but  two 
parties  in  this  controversy  ;  every  man  must  be  for  the  United 
States  or  against  it ;  there  can  be  but  two  sides,  —  patriots 
or  traitors." 

And  though  we  have  not  the  pleasure  and  the  honor  to 
listen  to  the  power  of  his  living  lips,  let  us  rise  to  the  lofty 
appreciation  and  apprehension  of  the  language  of  the  great 
commoner  of  the  West,  —  his  dying  testimony.  None  in  this 
country  but  patriots  or  traitors  !  Eepublicans  of  Massachu- 
setts, your  name  is  a  good  one ;  but  the  course  of  our  adver- 
saries is  rapidly  making  it  ob.solete,  for  it  is  not  so  much 
henceforth  a  Republican,  or  a  Democratic,  as  it  is  a  Union 
party,  and  a  party  for  disunion  of  this  confederacy.  It  is 
henceforth  a  party  for  the  Government  of  this  country  or  a 
party  against  that  Government.  .  .  .  And  so,  Mr.  President, 
as  there  are  many  things  to  be  done,  and  but  a  little  time 
before  us,  only  one  word  more. 

We  endeavored  to  consummate  your  wishes  by  selecting  an 


SPEECH  BEFORE  THE  REPUBLICAN  STATE  CONVENTION.   71 

instrumentality  at  Baltimore  which  would  carry  out  the  pur- 
pose of  the  people  of  this  Eepublic.  And  here  I  desire  to 
say  that,  in  my  apprehension,  if  the  convention  had  been 
postponed  to  July  or  to  August  or  to  September  or  to  Octo- 
ber, it  would  have  been  all  the  same,  there  would  not  liave 
been  the  difference  of  a  vote  whatsoever,  for  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  in  the  hearts  of  this  people.  I  do  not  stand  here  in 
behalf  of  your  delegation  to  discuss  the  question  whether 
there  may  be  or  may  not  have  been  undoubted  errors  in  his 
administration.  I  only  know  that,  if  there  had  not  been,  he 
were  not  subject  to  the  condition  of  mortal  lot. 

This  much,  however,  I  do  know,  that  President  Lincoln 
ascended  to  the  responsibilities  of  his  momentous  trust  at  a 
juncture  of  public  affairs  which  has  no  parallel  in  the  annals 
of  popular  government.  It  is  familiar  to  you  all.  The  events 
of  that  administration,  sufficient  in  their  number,  in  their 
magnitude,  in  their  consequences,  to  constitute  a  century  of 
record  for  other  countries  and  for  other  ages,  beginning  .h 
his  mildness,  and  his  familiarity,  and  his  kindness  toward 
those  who  assumed  the  sword  of  the  Rebellion  against  the 
Government,  culminating  at  last  in  war,  the  bloodiest  of  the 
foulest  of  recorded  time,  are  too  many,  too  vast,  to  leave  it 
capable  for  the  mind  of  any  man  to  make  a  calm  survey  and 
to  form  an  unqualified  judgment  upon  the  history  of  that 
administration.  That,  my  friends,  will  be  the  testimony  of 
History  in  years  to  come,  when  her  muse  shall  become  the 
calm  mistress  of  the  record. 

But  we  may  now  here,  as  at  Baltimore  we  did,  poise  and 
rest  our  mind  even  amid  the  turmoil  and  the  conflict  of  civil 
administration,  even  among  the  reverberations  that  come  to 
us  from  all  quarters  of  the  field,  and  form  a  generally  satis- 
factory judgment  in  regard  to  the  character  and  the  quality 
and  the  policy  of  the  President  of  the  United  States ;  and 
that  judgment  is  (as  I  believe  you  will  indorse  the  judgment 
of  the  convention  to  which  I  refer)  that,  as  a  whole  and  as  a 
summary  of  the  whole,  Abraham  Lincoln,  according  to  the 


72  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

estimation  of  every  candid,  fair,  intelligent,  and  loyal  man  in 
the  United  States,  has  pursued  for  his  object  and  purpose 
only  the  salvation  of  this  Government. 

I  do  not  pause  here,  fellow-citizens,  to  discuss  with  you 
those  questions  of  diversity  and  difference  between  us  which 
may  have  existed  in  times  past,  within  the  last  twenty-four 
months,  as  to  whether  he  was  too  rapid  or  too  slow.  It  is 
enough  for  me  to  know  that  Abraham  Lincoln  has  always 
lived  up  to  the  exigencies  of  the  times  and  the  necessity  of 
the  country  as  it  appeared  to  an  impartial  mind.  Sir,  I  offer 
to  you  no  written  speech,  but  I  like  sometimes  to  have  an 
authority  by  my  side ;  and  in  the  language  of  one  of  the 
greatest  and  most  philosophic  masters  of  thought  in  the 
whole  range  of  English  mind,  Edmund  Burke,  "  A  man  full 
of  warm,  speculative  benevolence  may  wish  society  otherwise 
constituted  than  he  finds  it,  but  a  good  patriot  and  a  good 
politician  always  considers  how  he  shall  make  the  most  of 
the  existing  material  of  his  country.  A  disposition  to  pre- 
serve, an  ability  to  improve,  taken  together,  would  be  my 
standard  of  a  statesman."  "  A  statesman,"  says  Mr.  Burke, 
"  never  losing  sight  of  principle,  is  to  be  governed  by  circum- 
stances, and  judging  contrary  to  the  exigencies  of  the  moment 
he  may  ruin  liis  country  forever."  Therefore,  adopting  that 
as  my  basis  of  predication,  I  say,  sir,  tliat  I  pause  not  here  to 
raise  or  decide  the  question  already  raised  between  those  who 
thought,  eighteen  months  ago,  that  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been 
too  slow  or  too  rapid  in  the  policy  which  he  had  enunciated. 
I  pause  not  here  to  settle  the  question  between  those  who, 
during  the  first  eighteen  months  of  his  adnnnistration,  would 
have  held  him  back  to  a  more  laggard  policy,  or  those  who 
would  have  thrust  him  forward  to  a  more  rapid  policy,  toward 
the  espousal  of  that  theory  which,  in  the  judgment  of  all,  only 
qualifying  it  as  to  the  question  of  time,  was  the  final  fate  and 
destiny  of  this  empire.  But  I  do  say,  sir,  in  regard  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  that  it  is  sufficient  to  me  that 
whenever  he  has  taken  a  step  or  a  stride  forward,  the  Lord 


SPEECH  BEFORE  THE  REPUBLICAN  STATE  CONVENTION.  73 

has  seemed  to  irradiate  and  illuminate  the  path  before  him. 
It  is  sufficient  for  me,  and  for  you,  that  he  has  struck  the 
epoch  bell  of  the  ages  at  just  and  exactly  such  times  as 
the  people  of  this  country  and  of  other  countries  were  most 
ready  to  receive  the  sound,  and  to  echo  it  in  their  hearts. 
It  is  sufficient  for  me,  and  for  you,  fellow-citizens,  that 
whether,  according  to  your  estimation  or  mine,  the  procla- 
mation of  freedom  came  early  or  came  late,  when  it  came 
at  all  it  found  the  people  of  the  North  as  it  could  not 
have  found  them  before,  —  ready  to  stand  by  it  and  to  die 
for  it. 

It  is  sufficient  for  me,  and  for  you,  that  the  policy  enun- 
ciated in  two  proclamatious,  while  it  has  sealed  the  issues  here 
at  home,  has  a  power  abroad  at  this  moment,  in  the  presence 
of  which  there  is  no  crowned  head  in  Europe  that  dares 
appeal  to  its  subjects  or  to  the  tribunal  of  the  moral  senti- 
ment of  mankind  against  the  cause  of  the  Union  in  this 
country.  And  so  in  his  prosecution  of  this  war.  I  see  him 
ascendinsf  to  his  office  without  the  education  or  the  instincts 
of  a  soldier ;  I  behold  him  trying  every  expedient,  after  every 
preceding  expedient  had  failed,  as  every  wise  man  would  do. 
I  behold  him  adopting  one  policy  when  another  policy  had 
proved  abortive.  I  behold  him  taking  one  commander  after 
another,  until  at  last,  under  the  favor  of  Almighty  God,  he 
has  found  two  who  are  the  right  ones. 

I  behold  him  determined  from  the  outset  that  3^our  flag 
and  mine  should  float  over  every  inch  of  the  territory  of  this 
Eepublic.  And  I  behold  him  at  length  determined,  in  good 
and  ample  time,  that  that  flag  should  float  through  all  the 
zones  of  this  empire  over  no  creature  of  God  in  manacles. 
And  therefore  I  say,  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  and  with 
the  declaration  of  that  Baltimore  Convention,  that  in  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  I  behold  the  ablest,  the  wisest,  the  most  accept- 
able, and  the  most  efficient  man  among  all  the  millions  of  his 
countrymen  that  could  have  been  selected  for  this  imperial 
crisis  of  the  Eepublic.      Ah,  Mr.  President,  you  know  too 


74  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

well,  —  for  your  familiarity  has  been  with  the  legislative 
department  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  while 
ours  has  been  here  at  home,  in  humbler  but  not  less  trust- 
worthy capacity,  with  the  heart  and  judgment  of  the  people 
in  their  primary  relations, — you  know  too  well,  sir,  as  we  do, 
that  when  our  hearts  have  failed  and  we  have  approached 
the  verge  of  despair,  when  our  arms  have  seemed  reticent 
of  their  thunders  and  seemed  to  be  unequal  to  their  mission 
of  victory,  all  that  was  left  to  us  was  the  buoyant  and  hopeful 
spirit  of  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

And,  sir,  for  these  reasons,  and  many  others  which  time 
will  not  permit  me  to  detail,  I  believe,  as  I  have  before  re- 
marked, that  this  same  Abraham  Lincoln  has  a  deep  place  in 
the  hearts  of  the  people  of  this  country;  and  I  believe  that, 
whether  you  had  called  your  convention  one  month  or  two 
months  later,  there  was  but  one  thunder  voice  which  would 
have  demanded  that  nomination,  and  which  will  respond  by 
his  election.  Sir,  I  remembered  while  you  were  deliber- 
ating this  morning  so  wisely  and  so  well  in  arranging  the 
affairs  of  this  Commonwealth,  —  I  remembered  that  a  great 
and  departed  statesman  of  Massachusetts  had  given  to  us  a 
key  to  the  appreciation  by  the  people  of  this  country  of 
the  qualities  and  the  characteristics  and  the  statesmanship 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  transcribed  it  while  you  were  here. 
Pardon  me  while  I  read  it. 

"  I  beheve,"  said  Mr.  Webster,  in  speaking  of  President  Tay- 
lor, "  that,  associated  with  the  highest  admiration  of  those  miUtary 
qualities  possessed  by  him,  there  was  spread  throughout  the  com- 
munity a  high  degree  of  confidence  and  faith  in  his  integrity  and 
honor  and  uprightness  as  a  man.  I  believe  he  was  especially 
regarded  as  both  a  firm  and  mild  man  in  the  exercise  of  authority ; 
and  I  have  observed,  more  than  once,  in  this  and  in  other  popular 
governments,  that  the  prevalent  motive  with  the  masses  of  man- 
kind for  conferring  high  power  on  individuals  is  often  a  confidence 
in  their  mildness,  their  paternal,  protecting,  and  safe  character. 
Tlie  people  naturally  feel  safe  when  they  feel  themselves  to  be 


SPEECH   BEFORE   THE   REPUBLICAN    STATE   CONVENTION.     75 

under  the  control  and  protection  of  sober  counsels,  of  impartial 
minds,  of  a  general  paternal  superintendence." 

This  is  the  language  of  Mr.  Webster  in  regard  to  a  departed 
President.  I  adopt  it  as  better  than  any  which  I  can  command 
or  frame  upon  this  occasion,  as  expressive  of  the  estimation 
in  which  I  believe  this  convention  holds  the  characteristics 
and  qualities  of  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

And  now,  sir,  to  detain  the  convention  no  longer,  for  I  have 
already  spoken  longer  than  I  intended,  I  desire  to  remind  you 
that  but  a  few  weeks  will  elapse  before  the  Ides  of  November 
will  be  upon  us.  They  may  disappoint  you,  but  if  they 
should,  it  will  be  by  the  universality  and  the  magnitude  of 
the  majorities  for  the  loyal  arms  of  this  country. 

Under  the  administration  of  Abraham  Lincoln  the  storm 
of  war  will  cease,  and  its  desolation  will  be  succeeded  by  the 
graceful  bloom  of  j)eace ;  and  under  his  administration  and 
under  the  councils  which  he  will  call  and  gather  around  him, 
be  assured,  my  friends,  it  will  be  a  peace  of  honor,  of  virtue, 
of  independence,  and  of  freedom.  It  will  be  a  peace  which 
shall  leave  to  all  the  generations  that  shall  come  after  us  a 
great  and  an  irresistible  Ptepublic,  because  it  wiU  be  a  Ee- 
public  that  is  regenerated  and  free. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

A  EULOGY  BEFORE  THE   CITY  COUNCIL   AND  CITIZENS   OP   WORCESTER, 

JUNE  1,  1865. 

It  would  be  a  painful  suppression  of  one  of  the  finest  of 
human  instincts,  and  an  unbecoming  disregard  of  the  official 
proclamation  of  the  Chief  Magistrate,  if  this  city  were  not 
among  the  foremost  to  accord  its  voice  to  the  funeral  cry  of 
the  nation.  Never  before,  in  high  joy  or  deep  grief,  has  the 
normal  simplicity  of  America  given  way  to  such  pageant 
grandeur.  The  great  fountains  of  public  sorrow  have  been 
broken  up,  and  a  whole  people  have  turned  out  to  herald 
their  President  returning  in  silence  to  the  dust  of  the  prairie. 
I  look  back  over  forty  centuries  for  the  like  of  this.  My  eye 
discerns  no  tit  resemblance  in  anything  which  the  conceits 
of  heathen  mythology  liave  transmitted,  —  not  in  that  myth- 
ical sympathy  of  the  Tiber  for  Marcellus,  fortunate  recipient 
of  such  honor,  —  nor  in  the  many  memorial  Italian  marbles 
and  temples,  —  nor  in  all  the  tasteful  pomp  which  has  con- 
ducted French  kings  to  their  imperial  sleep,  and  has  made 
their  capital  a  vast  lettered  monument  to  its  one  great 
departed,  —  nor  in  the  drum-beat,  and  cathedral  service,  and 
royal  guard,  which  have  escorted  English  monarchs  from  the 
palace  to  the  Abbey.  The  earliest  and  latest  age  alone 
meet  now  in  comparison  of  mournful  pageantry.  The  Orient 
and  the  West,  the  third  of  Hebrew  patriarchs  and  the  six- 
teenth President,  four  thousand  years  apart,  are  pictured 
before  us  to-day  in  the  same  spectacle  and  lesson  of  a  nation 
following  a  just  and  true  ruler  to  his  tomb. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  77 

I  do  not  suppose  that  in  all  the  intervening  period,  fretted 
and  gilded  as  it  has  been  with  art  and  culture,  anything  like 
the  passage  of  the  herald  corpse  of  Jacob  from  his  death-bed 
to  the  field  and  cave  of  his  fathers,  in  public  turn-out,  and 
general  lamentation,  and  sincerity  of  grief,  has  occurred  be- 
fore until  now.  To  the  two  thousand  dependants  of  that 
deceased,  to  all  those  sent  forth  by  his  premier  son,  the  most 
munificent  of  the  line  of  Egyptian  kings  ordered  all  the 
public  men  of  his  country  to  report  for  additional  escort  on 
the  long  and  patient  and  solemn  march.  Chariots  and  horse- 
men, men  and  maidens,  the  grim  visages  of  age  and  the 
dusky  beauty  of  youth,  in  lengthened  procession,  with  palms 
and  music  and  benediction,  in  behalf  of  that  early  world 
paid  the  last  tribute  to  a  great  and  just  benefactor,  to  a 
builder  of  empire.  Measuring  the  days  by  their  solemn 
tramp  and  their  halts  for  local  condolence,  the  swarthy 
column  moved  on  over  two  hundred  miles,  and  laid  their 
treasured  hero  in  the  august  depository  of  the  first  and 
second  of  his  line. 

That  Oriental  retinue  of  bereavement  and  sublimity  has 
been  matched  and  eclipsed  within  this  last  lunar  month. 
Dying  without  the  consciousness  but  amid  all  the  pathos  of 
his  Eastern  exemplar  and  progenitor,  the  foremost  man  of 
this  Western  world  has  been  carried  to  his  rural  rest  beyond 
the  mountains  and  near  the  great  river.  Awhile  he  lay  in 
state  at  the  capital  where  he  fell,  that  all  classes  might  gather 
about,  to  learn  the  lessons  of  historical  providence  and  wit- 
ness the  presence  of  God.  His  dust,  garnered  beneath 
richest  canopies,  preceded  by  raven  waving  plumes,  and 
flanked  by  reverse  arms  of  the  flower  youth  of  the  land,  has 
been  borne  on  triumphal  route  through  the  chief  cities  of  a 
continent.  The  Monumental  City  opened  her  gates  in  love, 
which  four  years  before  would  have  closed  them  against  him, 
if  she  had  known  his  coming.  Independence  Hall  struck  its 
bell,  and  the  dismal  undulations  spread  through  half  a  mil- 
lion of  hearts  as  he  passed  by.     The  great  emporium  of  the 


78  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

North,  which  had  made  a  jest  of  much  of  his  life  in  office, 
bowed  as  a  unit,  like  a  stricken  child,  and  paid  such  honors 
to  his  passing  shade  as  nowhere  have  been  witnessed  on  the 
earth.  Still  onward  and  westward,  a  thousand  miles  yet  to 
go,  surrounded  by  vast  throngs,  all  and  everywhere  reveren- 
tial, all  and  everywhere  casting  choicest  flowers  upon  the 
pathway  of  the  dead,  —  as  if  twenty  millions  had  assembled 
to  make  ovation  before  the  corporeal  symbol  of  a  benefactor, 
—  your  President  was  taken  to  his  last  abode,  where  he  shall 
rest  till  the  dead  shall  rise  at  the  call  of  the  archangel. 

The  first  shock  of  our  calamity,  the  deep  sensation  of  hor- 
ror which  pervaded  all  our  hearts  when  the  "  couriers  of  the 
air"  told  us  at  midnight  how  suddenly  and  in  what  manner 
President  Lincoln  had  a  few  hours  before  been  snatched 
away,  has  now  subsided,  and  we  naturally  pause  and  deliber- 
ate upon  those  qualities  of  character  and  service  which,  in 
the  apparent  judgment  of  this  country,  have  already  assigned 
him  a  place  only  second  in  the  long  lineage  of  its  magis- 
trates. However  simple  this  analysis  may  seem,  it  falls 
entirely  outside  the  common  range  of  our  study  of  public 
men  and  events,  and  does  not  belong  to  the  usual  analogies 
of  biography  or  history.  It  would  be  scarcely  more  irrational 
to  compare  the  developments  and  stages  through  which  we 
have  just  passed  with  any  or  all  the  unlike  periods  be- 
fore, than  to  measure  him  who  has  been  the  central  figure 
in  these  civic  and  martial  achievements  by  the  personalities 
of  the  past.  He  will  be  known  and  judged  by  the  next  age, 
not  indeed  without  regard  to  his  abstract  quality,  but  more 
conspicuously  and  vividly  as  the  one  man  who,  in'  the  un- 
folding of  the  panorama  of  these  four  years,  everywhere 
appears  in  front  and  in  chief.  Under  the  limitations  of  a 
single  Presidential  term  he  must  pass  to  his  2)lace  among 
critics  and  annalists ;  but  that  Presidential  term  was  enough 
to  have  encircled  an  historic  generation  in  other  ages,  and  to 
have  circumscribed  the  life-long  renown  of  other  statesmen. 
Safely  then  may  we  trust  him  to  that  judgment  which  shall 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  79 

fall  upon  his  own  brief  career  of  rule.  Never  any  man, 
without  public  thought  or  remembrance  of  his  youth  or 
early  life  or  disciplinary  training,  has  mounted  so  quickly  to 
the  empyrean  of  fame.  Think,  for  example,  in  what  manner 
we  usually  estimate  Napoleon  or  Washington.  Their  dis- 
tinction dates  from  the  beginning.  The  genius  of  Napoleon 
is  nearly  the  same  to  us  whether  we  remember  him  as  a 
child  playing  with  a  cannon,  or  as  a  youth  in  the  Academy, 
or  at  twenty-eight  dazzling  the  nations  with  his  unprece- 
dented victories.  Washington  the  youth  is  familiar  to  our 
schoolboys,  appears  great  in  the  French  war,  only  greater  in 
the  Eevolutiouary  and  Constitutional  period  which  followed. 
But  here  is  a  plain  man,  since  April  opened,  gone  into  the 
alcoves  of  all  generations  to  come  and  of  every  race,  as  to  all 
of  his  life  save  the  last  five  years  unknown  to  half  his 
countrymen  and  to  the  whole  world  beside.  Such  and  so 
exceptional  is  our  country  and  our  time,  such  and  so  excep- 
tional is  Abraham  Lincoln. 

And  yet  he  had  a  childhood  and  a  youth.  In  that  which  I 
call  the  first  stage  of  his  life,  ending  when  he  settled  down  as 
a  lawyer  in  Springfield,  I  think  we  may  see  that  fitting,  that 
preparation,  that  nascent  destination,  which  was  the  providen- 
tial prelude  to  the  ultimate  work.  Cast  into  a  sparsely  in- 
habited wild  at  eight  years,  fulfilling  the  measure  of  maternal 
ambition  when  at  ten  he  could  read  the  sacred  volume, 
exercising  his  first  conscious  power  in  writing  to  his  moth- 
er's travelling  preacher  to  come  and  preach  over  her  grave, 
writing  letters  for  the  neighbors,  attending  the  first  school  in 
that  country  clad  in  buckskin,  only  too  happy  at  length  when 
he  could  count  as  his  property  a  copy  of  Bunyan  and  ^Esop, 
a  life  of  Washington  and  Clay,  behold  him  whose  death  forty- 
five  years  later  brought  autograph  letters  from  every  crowned 
head  of  Europe.  His  library  might  have  been  larger,  but 
could  it  have  been  better?  To  his  apprehension  of  the 
Divine  Word,  learned  when  that  was  the  only  volume  in  the 
cabin,  we   may   owe   the    Cromwell-like   second  Inaugural, 


83  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

which  was  only  half  appreciated  by  his  countrymen  until  the 
praise  of  it  came  from  the  other  side  of  the  water.  Did  a 
man  ever  reflect  better  the  light  of  youthful  studies,  than  the 
President  reflected  ^sop  and  Bunyan  ?  No  books  are  more 
likely  to  be  remembered  than  they ;  Cowper  said  that  his 
child-readings  of  the  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  would  abide  with 
him  till  memory  should  perish.  And  I  confess  it  is  to  me  a 
grateful  fancy,  in  looking  back  for  the  formative  influences 
in  the  life  of  Lincoln,  to  perceive  in  these  two  masterpieces 
of  inventive  and  natural  conception  such  sources  of  thought 
and  impression  as  would  be  best  calculated  to  produce  that 
combination,  which  he  so  remarkably  illustrated,  and  which 
was  not  unrequisite  for  our  time,  the  Puritan  and  tlie  Hoosier. 
Then  we  are  to  remember  that  in  this  school  of  Western  life, 
with  books  so  few  but  so  good,  he  acquired  what  Mr.  Burke 
would  call  "  the  rustic,  manly,  home-bred  sense  of  this  coun- 
try," —  to  have  polished  whose  ingenuous  roughness  would 
have  cost  us  half  the  power  he  has  had  during  this  war  over 
the  mass  of  his  citizens.  They  have  liked  him  all  the  better, 
that  his  wisdom  and  speech  were  elementary  and  enabled 
him  to  speak  directly  to  their  hearts.  They  have  liked  him 
so  much  the  more,  that  he  did  not  pretend  to  be  learned, 
while  they  knew  him  to  be  original  and  wise.  Paucity  of 
opportunities  in  youth  favored  modesty  in  high  position. 
Ho\v  many  members  of  Parliament,  asked  an  English  jour- 
nal, would  imitate  the  modest  honesty  of  the  President  and 
acknowledge  that  they  had  never  read  all  parts  of  Shake- 
speare ?  But  he  understood  and  remembered  all  that  he  had 
read. 

And  now,  before  he  opens  his  office  of  law,  we  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  young  man  of  nineteen  floating  as  supercargo 
on  a  flatboat  to  New  Orleans.  It  was  his  last  act  of  rusticity 
and  adventure.  He  was  now  unconsciously  completing  that 
democratic  type  of  character  which  in  its  subsequent  expan- 
sion and  use  has  contributed  so  largely  to  save  the  union  of 
these  States.     It  was  indeed  a  typical  enterprise,  for  that 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  81 

voyage  represented  the  unity  of  interest  and  welfare  which 
connects  the  Northwest  with  the  Gulf,  and  all  the  States 
together  from  the  Crescent  round  to  Malabar.  Upon  his  re- 
turn he  would  enter  the  gates  of  productive  life,  how  eventful 
he  then  knew  not,  nor  any  one  of  you.  Suppose  that  in 
one  of  those  transition  hours,  as  he  was  borne  lazily  on  the 
great  currents  and  by  the  solemn  forests,  his  unlettered  mind 
rapt  in  the  rhapsodies  of  the  Prophets,  or  the  dreams  of  Bun- 
yan,  or  the  wit  of  ^sop,  or  the  grandeur  of  Washington,  the 
angel  of  this  dedicated  youth  had  raised  the  curtain  and  re- 
vealed to  him,  that  before  he  should  pass  the  ordinary  prime  of 
life  he  should  be  elevated  to  the  highest  trust  of  this  empire, 
lifted  on  the  shoulders  of  the  people  in  ecstasy  at  the  thought 
his  own  words  had  kindled  of  making  it  all  free,  —  that  un- 
der his  presiding  the  issues  of  life  and  death  to  this  Union 
should  be  unrolled  on  every  field  of  a  continental  war,  —  that 
he  himself  should  sit  in  control  over  larger  armies  than 
Europe,  north  or  south,  had  ever  seen,  —  that  his  hand  should 
touch  the  electric  wire  which  should  awake  four  millions  of 
the  children  of  men  to  liberty  and  immortality,  —  that  the 
Government  of  his  country  should  at  last  be  sealed  in  his 
own  blood  to  eternal  security  and  glory,  and  that  he,  almost 
yet  young,  should  return  to  sleep  with  his  fathers,  leaving  to 
both  hemispheres  a  name  that  shall  be  hailed  with  that  of 
Washington,  whose  history  he  was  even  then  reading,  till 
time  shall  be  no  more  !  He  would  have  fallen  prostrate 
before  the  vision  !  And  yet,  under  the  beneficence  of  our 
institutions,  if  this  was  to  happen  at  all  it  was  as  likely  to 
happen  to  him  as  to  any  other,  and  he  lived  to  behold  it,  and 
died  in  an  untimely  hour  at  fifty-seven  ! 

Upon  the  second  period,  that  which  I  call  the  brawn  in  his 
life,  these  exercises  will  not  permit  me  long  to  dwell.  It 
bears  the  journals  of  twenty  years,  from  the  raising  of  the 
attorney's  sign  in  '37  till  he  gave  himself  without  reclamation 
to  his  country  at  the  opening  of  '58.  They  tell  us  he  was  an 
able  lawyer,  and  I  can  believe  that ;  but  he  must  have  been 


82  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK, 

elementary,  not  learned.  They  give  us  good  accounts  of  his 
professional  successes,  but  other  and  greater  scenes  make  us 
forget  them.  The  jurisprudence  of  the  West  in  his  day  has 
entitled  few  men  to  enduring  distinction.  We  know,  how- 
ever, that  he  distinguished  himself  in  his  own  cases,  and  that 
he  was  a  favorite  sought  to  manage  the  causes  of  the  clients 
of  others.  In  the  leoislature  of  his  State  he  measured  lances 
with  the  rising  Douglas,  and  there  for  the  first  time  cauglit 
the  gleam  of  his  own  future.  Once  he  went  into  Congress, 
and  left  it  without  great  distinction,  —  but  that  should  not  be 
counted  largely  against  him.  Yet  it  was  then  that  he  became 
considerably  known  in  the  country.  At  that  time  I  met  him 
in  the  streets  of  Worcester.  Congress  had  just  adjourned 
when  our  Whig  State  Convention  assembled  here  in  1848. 
As  the  chosen  head  of  the  city  committee  of  the  party  with 
which  he  acted,  I  had  called  a  public  meeting  in  yonder  hall 
for  the  evening  preceding  the  convention,  and  had  invited 
several  arentlemen  of  note  to  make  addresses.  None  of  them 
came.  But  as  the  sun  was  descending  I  was  told  that  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  member  of  Congress  from  Illinois,  was  stopping 
at  one  of  the  hotels  in  town.  I  had  heard  of  him  before,  and 
at  once  called  upon  him  and  made  known  my  wish  that  he 
would  address  the  meeting  in  the  evening,  to  which  he  readily 
assented.  I  further  suggested  to  him  that  as  the  party  in 
whose  cause  we  were  then  united  was  largely  in  the  minority 
here,  and  as  there  was  an  unusual  bitterness  in  the  antago- 
nistic politics  of  this  community,  he  should  practise  much 
discretion,  and  leave  our  side  as  well  in  its  prospects  as  he 
could.  His  benignant  eye  caught  my  meaning  and  his  gentle 
spirit  responded  approval.  His  address  was  one  of  the  best 
it  has  ever  been  my  fortune  to  hear,  and  left  not  one  root  of 
bitterness  behind.  Some  of  you  will  remember  all  this,  but  not 
so  distinctly  as  I  do.  I  never  saw  him  afterwards.  The  next 
day  the  convention  came ;  the  genius-eloquence  of  Choate,  of 
blessed  memory,  was  applauded  to  the  echo,  and  the  stately 
rhetoric  of  Winthrop  received  its  reward;  but  the  member 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  83 

from  Illinois,  though  he  remained  in  town  surrounded  by- 
associate  Congressmen,  was  that  day  and  in  that  body  un- 
known and  unheard.  But  where  are  they  all  now,  and  where 
is  he  ?  —  in  the  benedictions  of  his  countrymen,  in  the  grati- 
tude of  an  enfranchised  race,  in  the  love  of  mankind  ! 

In  1858,  only  seven  years  ago,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  selected  by 
the  Eepublicans  of  Illinois  as  the  competitor  of  Mr.  Douglas 
for  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  Thus  opened 
the  third  and  last  period  of  his  life.  How  strong  he  was  at 
that  time  in  the  Empire  State  of  the  West  is  well  shown  by 
his  having  received  every  vote  in  a  ballot  of  twelve  hundred 
chosen  delegates  in  a  State  convention.  That  was  the  hour 
of  his  consecration,  of  his  sacramental  vow,  in  the  service  of 
the  country.  Then  and  there  he  became  the  representative 
man.  And  now,  after  reading  for  the  second  time  his  discus- 
sions with  his  eminent  rival  in  that  canvass,  I  can  declare 
my  conviction  that  to  the  clear  analysis  which  he  constantly 
presented  of  the  purposes  and  the  teachings  of  the  founders 
of  this  Government,  to  the  reverence  with  which  he  impressed 
the  people  for  the  humane  and  benevolent  intent  of  the 
Constitution,  to  the  exalted  moral  reasons  upon  which  he 
predicated  the  new  coming  era,  we  are  more  largely  indebted, 
than  to  any  other  person,  for  the  firm  purpose  and  high  re- 
solve which,  two  years  later,  united  and  inflamed  the  free 
States  against  the  further  encroachments  of  slavery  in  this 
country.  You  will  consider  the  honorable  courage  of  the 
man  in  the  positions  he  then  took.  The  laws,  the  traditions, 
the  systems,  of  Illinois,  her  Southern  geography  and  settle- 
ment, tlie  memories  and  prejudices  of  her  people,  were  all 
acjainst  the  theories  and  humanities  which  he  determined  in 
the  fear  only  of  God  to  proclaim.  But  his  soul  was  ablaze 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  a  Christian  statesmanship,  and  he 
went  forth  in  the  panoply  of  immortal  truth,  which  neither 
the  timidity  of  friends  could  strip  from  him  nor  the  darts  of 
opponents  could  penetrate.  He  sounded  at  the  opening  the 
bugle  note  of  omen  which  rang  through  the  land :  "A  house 


84  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe  this  Govern- 
ment cannot  permanently  endure  half  slave  and  half  free.  I 
do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved.  I  do  not  expect 
the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided. 
It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other."  Many  else- 
wliere,  some  there,  hesitated  over  the  high  doctrine ;  large 
numbers  of  Eepublicans  in  the  North  were  not  unwilling  to 
see  Mr.  Douglas  successful  as  a  reward  for  his  brave  contest 
with  Buchanan.  I  confess  that  I  felt  so  myself.  But  the 
newly  invested  champion  looked  over  the  fleeting  hour  and 
the  mere  question  of  a  senatorial  chair;  he  saw  farther  than 
times  or  localities,  and  pierced  beyond  the  veil  which  too 
often  shuts  off  administrations  from  the  vision  of  the  beati- 
tudes and  the  ages ;  he  knew  the  importance  that  the  banner 
of  a  new  party,  which  bore  the  name  of  Freedom,  should 
carry  radiant  inscriptions,  and  over  all  the  State,  from  her 
frozen  springs  to  her  Egyptian  heats,  he  upheld 

"  Th'  imperial  ensign,  wliich,  full  high  advanced, 
Shone  like  a  meteor  streaming  to  the  wind." 

By  this  unwavering  fidelity  to  his  convictions,  his  hour  having 
not  yet  come,  under  the  overruling  of  Providence  he  accom- 
plished both  more  and  less  than  he  set  out  for,  —  he  made  his 
rival  Senator,  himself  President,  and  his  country  Free.  As 
I  look  backward  over  the  events  of  that  year  which  he  so 
largely  controlled, — as  I  follow  him  sixty  times  to  the  hustings 
and  hear  him  in  language  not  one  w^ord  of  which,  so  far  as  I 
can  judge,  he  w^ould  wish  to  blot,  urging  those  lessons  which 
the  nation  must  then  have  received  or  have  passed  beneath  the 
yoke  of  perpetual  humiliation,  —  as  I  see  him  rising,  from 
the  autumn  of  '58  to  the  spring  of  '60,  to  an  ascendency  over 
all  others  as  the  advocate  of  the  primal  principles  of  a  free 
republic,  and  so  recognized  across  the  whole  northern  belt, 
from  the  great  plains  to  the  Atlantic  frontier,  —  I  not  only 
count  him  most  fortunate  of  men  in  the  lieidit  to  which  all 
these  things  soon  after  conducted  him  and  us,  but  I  con- 
clude that  if  he  had  gone  then  to  the  sleep  in  which  he  now 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  85 

reposes,  he  would  have  been  embalmed  statesman-father  of  a 
new  dispensation.     The  year  1858  had  established  him. 

"  The  boundless  prairies  learned  liis  name, 
His  words  the  mountain  echoes  knew  ; 
The  Northern  breezes  swept  his  fame 
From  icy  lake  to  wann  bayou." 

Our  greatest  Olympiad  opened  in  1860.  I  need  not  sketch 
the  preceding  or  attendant  circumstances  of  the  convention 
and  the  nomination.  Our  first  choice  was  another,  and 
Massachusetts  followed  the  fine  arts  of  New  York  to  give  it 
success.  They  have  a  better  and  larger  way  at  the  West. 
While  the  men  of  the  East  were  ciphering  at  the  hotels  in 
Chicago,  the  men  of  the  Mississippi,  the  Ohio,  and  the  Wa- 
bash were  packing  the  wigwam  and  filling  the  square  with  a 
myriad  of  large  hearts  and  brazen  throats  ready  to  sound 
another  and  a  loftier  chant.  Their  candidate  took  the  votes, 
and  the  voice  of  all  rose  to  the  sky  like  a  chorus  of  nature. 
It  was  the  echo  of  the  voice  of  God. 

Fortunate,  providential  selection!  Any  other  apparently 
would  have  shipwrecked  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant.  If  you 
consider  how  inevitable  are  the  jealousies  of  the  West  towards 
the  East,  —  to  which  we  must  always  submit,  and  which  we 
must  always  palliate,  since  we  cannot  prevent  or  remove 
them,  —  if,  especially,,  you  reflect  what  a  bond  of  fate  that 
Father  of  Waters  is  to  us  all,  and  how  we  must  keep  peace 
and  conciliation  with  those  river  gods  if  we  expect  unity,  pros- 
perity, and  glory,  —  if  you  freshly  remember  how,  since  this 
war  began,  the  people  of  the  West,  though  their  sons  were 
dying  in  the  same  trenches  and  in  the  same  hospitals  with 
ours,  have  thought  and  said  that  we  were  reaping  the  gTeater 
benefits  of  the  sacrifice,  —  you  will  agree  with  me  that  none 
but  a  Western  President  could  have  kept  our  armies,  our 
voters,  and  our  hearts  united  amid  the  afflictions  and  reverses 
that  have  rolled  their  thunders  and  their  floods  over  us.  And 
so  the  hand  of  our  fathers'  God  interposed  against  our  calcu- 
lations five  years  ago  at  the  City  of  the  Lakes. 


86  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  II.   BULLOCK. 

Our  departed  hero  accepted  the  nomination  in  written 
words  which  are  a  model  for  practical  religion  and  modern 
statesmanship.  In  language  which  shows  that  the  Spirit  of 
the  Most  High  was  upon  him,  he  wrapped  the  resolutions 
around  his  heart,  and  in  terms  which  should  have  won  every 
citizen  from  Key  West  to  Eichmond,  he  gave  himself  to  the 
issue  now  so  triumphant  and  so  sad.  It  was  an  issue  worthy 
of  the  best  days  of  any  nation.  As  he  received  it  from  the 
convention  that  framed  it,  and  as  he  stated  it  in  his  letter  of 
acceptance,  it  was  a  system  of  policy  and  statesmanship  which 
Daniel  Webster,  even  on  that  memorable  7th  of  March,  would 
have  rejoiced  to  acknowledge,  —  which  Henry  Clay,  in  any  of 
his  later  and  brilliant  years,  would  have  gladly  made  resound 
as  out  of  a  trumpet  from  the  borders  of  Virginia  through  the 
length  of  Kentucky  to  the  Eiver.  It  was  a  broad  and  gener- 
ous platform,  such  as  Jefferson  would  have  decorated  with 
an  hundred  theses  of  his  philosophy,  such  as  Washington 
would  have  stood  upon  and  invoked  the  blessings  of  the  Al- 
mighty. And  I  have  the  honor  to  say  here  —  to  be  sure  it 
is  now  after  the  fulfilment  of  the  declarations  and  the  proph- 
ecies —  that  if  Abraham  Lincoln  had  not  felt  warranted  to 
justify  and  stand  upon  the  resolutions,  then  the  North 
American  Republic  was  not  deserving  of  salvation.  But  he 
thought,  as  we  thought,  that  there  was  a  divinity  in  the  im- 
pending struggle,  and  we  entered  upon  it  together,  all  of  us 
rejoicing  to  have  such  a  leader,  and  he  only  too  willing  to 
stake  his  life  on  the  support  of  such  friends  and  on  such  a 
sublime  restoration  and  reconstruction  of  nationality. 

He  was  chosen ;  tlie  men  in  the  South  of  our  country  had 
decided  that  he  should  be  chosen,  and  that  the  precipitation 
of  their  designs  should  attend  with  equal  promptness  the 
humanity  and  patriotism  of  the  North.  The  work  of  seces- 
sion began  at  the  instant,  and  before  the  President  elect 
had  reached  the  capital,  so  many  of  the  slave  States  had 
already  declared  themselves  out  of  tlie  Union  as  to  make  it 
certain  that  nearly  all  the  others  intended  to  follow.    Thougli 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  87 

Buchanan  had  remained  in  office  four  months  since  the  elec- 
tion, let  the  curtain  drop  over  all  that  he  did  and  over  all 
that  he  neglected  to  do,  and  let  us  behold  the  new  President 
approaching  the  frowning  scene  which  confronted  him. 

Such  work  was  his  as  no  man  had  ever  put  hand  to.  A 
nation  was  dissolving,  and  half  its  territory  was  bristling 
with  the  arms  of  revolt.  In  the  loyal  sections  there  was 
universal  despondency,  and  among  those  upon  whom  he 
must  rely  there  was  every  variety  of  counsel,  from  that  which 
would  permit  the  wayward  sisters  to  depart  in  peace,  to  that 
which  would  thrust  the  arm  of  the  Government  in  the  moment 
of  its  greatest  weakness  against  the  thick  bosses  of  a  rebellion 
of  thirty  years'  preparation.  The  czar,  the  emperor,  the  king, 
would  marshal  and  march  out  his  army  and  crush  insurgency 
before  the  next  moon ;  but  the  constitutional  republic  had  no 
army.  Foreign  nations  caught  at  the  defect  in  a  moment  as 
fatal  to  our  existence,  and  adapted  tlieir  own  policy  to  the 
expectation  of  seeing  the  North  American  Union  disappear 
like  a  dream.  In  the  general  gloom  which  shut  down  over 
the  whole  horizon  good  men  everywhere  were  ready  to  ex- 
claim, HAIL,  HOLY  LIGHT,  —  if  only  it  might  come  from  any 
quarter.  What  kind  of  statesmanship  or  learning  or  expe- 
rience could  make  a  magistrate  equal  to  such  a  work  ?  Di- 
plomacy could  not  save  the  flag  then,  eloquence  could  not 
start  a  throb  beneath  the  ribs  of  that  death,  an  arm  of  flesh 
could  not  hold  a  charm  over  the  ingfulfincj  waters  and  the 
dismantling  ship.  History,  civilization,  nay,  almost  the  mer- 
cies of  Heaven,  we  thought,  were  baffled  in  that  day.  Again* 
then,  I  ask,  what  kind  of  a  President  was  needed,  and  would 
prove  best  appointed  ?  You  know  how,  for  many  months, 
before  this  man  had  got  rightly  into  the  work,  and  before  we 
could  properly  measure  him,  some  of  you  sighed  for  a  Jackson 
and  others  for  a  Webster  to  take  the  helm ;  yet  we  now  all 
believe  that  we  have  had  the  man  raised  up  by  God  for  this 
particular  epoch,  that  few  could  have  accomplished  this  mis- 
sion at  all,  and  none  so  well. 


88  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

For  he  came  to  it  devout,  wise,  patieut,  forecasting,  and  rich 
with  insight.  I  read  his  Inaugural  as  a  key  to  his  whole 
policy  for  this  strange  time,  and  there  I  discern  the  dawn  of 
the  lustre  of  his  qualities  for  administration,  which  blended  a 
certain  Eoman  firmness  with  a  Christian  mediatorial  talent. 
His  wisdom  began  in  this,  that  he  knew  he  could  not  foresee 
all  that  might  happen,  and  so  he  would  gather  the  arms  of 
his  countrymen  around  him,  and  would  keep  step  with  the 
majestic  marches  of  Providence.  Never  doubting  that  our 
jurisdiction  would  be  recovered,  always  believing  the  conflict 
would  be  long  and  varied,  he  promised  just  enough  to  keep 
the  element  of  hope  uppermost  in  the  country,  and  not  too 
much  to  unfit  the  masses  for  their  own  great  part.  Clay  or 
"Webster  in  his  chair  might  have  restored  the  old  Union  a 
little  sooner,  with  the  loss  of  the  moral  sense  of  the  world 
and  with  the  cost  of  another  revolt  hereafter ;  Jackson  might 
have  struck  quicker  and  heavier  blows,  but  an  untimely  blow 
then  might  have  shivered  this  Union  like  glass.  Our  man 
had  that  tact  and  knowledge  of  men  which  only  his  training 
could  have  imparted.  He  knew  his  own  West,  and  kept  his 
hand  constantly  on  her  pulse ;  he  was  in  sympathy  with  the 
conscience  of  the  East,  and  honored  her  culture  and  power ; 
and  by  his  cultivation  of  the  one  and  the  other  he  kept  them 
both  in  harmonious  action  to  the  end.  The  ancient  countries 
affected  delight  and  amusement  at  the  sight  of  this  son  of  the 
prairies  succeeding  to  the  work  of  kings,  and  putting  his  hand 
to  an  undertaking  which  comprised  the  destinies  of  a  hemi- 
sphere. They  could  not  understand  that  the  question  he  had 
to  deal  with  could  receive  little  aid  from  statecraft  or  the 
previous  education  of  a  public  man.  They  could  not  believe 
that  new  men  are  best  for  great  crises  ;  that  for  such  a  ruler 
and  for  such  a  period  Bunyan  is  a  better  master  than  all  the 
Georges,  and  JEsop  a  keener  teacher  than  both  the  "Walpoles ; 
that  in  a  trial  of  the  national  spirit  and  the  national  forces 
involving  the  issue  of  deatli  at  once  or  life  perpetual  to  a 
nation,  the  study  of  Washington  is  higher  than  the  schools ; 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  89 

that  in  such  an  emergency  a  single  Cromwell  is  greater  than 
a  dozen  earls  out  of  Eton  and  Oxford.  They  forgot  the  con- 
solations of  their  own  history,  —  that  Marlborough  had  never 
read  Xenophon  or  later  martial  historians,  but  somehow 
managed  to  triumph  over  veteran  armies  of  France ;  that 
Wellington  was  counted  dull  in  his  early  life,  and  rose  to 
victory  and  fame  only  by  the  buffet  of  trial,  —  and  they  did 
not  stop  to  consider  that  Lincoln  might  ascend  as  conspicu- 
ously, and  bring  with  him  a  Grant,  a  Sherman,  a  Sheridan,  as 
quickly  and  as  triumphantly.  All  history,  all  examples,  all 
instructions,  are  at  fault  in  revolutions ;  and  our  enemies  at 
home  and  abroad  were  making  ihockery  of  the  mysteries  of 
providential  interpositions  all  along  the  century  processions  of 
mankind,  when  they  hesitated  about  our  success,  because  our 
chief  had  no  title  save  that  which  the  Almighty  had  given 
him,  no  signet  save  that  of  the  cabin,  no  learning  save  that  to 
which  the  evening  torch  and  the  celestial  orbs  had  lighted 
him.  But  he  disappointed  them  all,  passed  beyond  the  boun- 
daries they  had  set  for  him  within  four  years,  —  the  shortest 
space  ever  illustrated  by  such  distinction, — triumphed  over 
a  civil  war  of  imperial  proportions,  and  left  a  name  to  be  re- 
corded and  repeated  in  the  courts  of  St.  Louis,  St.  James,  and 
St.  Peter,  among  the  inscriptions  of  a  thousand  years  past  and 
to  come.  So  simple  and  rudimental  in  his  origin  and  prepa- 
ration, not  learned  by  the  side  of  the  masters,  and  not  ignorant 
of  himself,  he  came  to  a  supremacy  over  the  grandest  epic  of 
all  countries,  and  gave  triumphant  direction  to  the  greatest 
war  of  human  annals.  It  will  be  the  task  of  the  historian 
and  biographer  to  classify  and  present  these  high  themes 
hereafter,  but  a  few  words  ought  to  be  said  about  them  now 
over  his  new-made  grave. 

Having  neither  the  taste  nor  the  education  of  a  soldier,  he 
so  practised  his  intuitions  as  to  become  master  of  the  field  of 
war.  If  you  consider  how  extended  and  complicated  the 
objective  field  soon  became,  and  how  in  consultation  and 
oversight  he  was  its  director,  it  must  occur  to  you,  in  reading 


90  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

liis  correspondence  with  the  commanders,  that  his  perceptions 
were  clear  and  his  judgment  elementary  and  profound.     How 
many   toilsome   and   anxious   hours  he   passed   in  the  War 
Department,  and  how  well  he  understood  all  that  M'as  trans- 
piring and  all  that  ought  to  transpire,  is  made  apparent  in 
the  letters  he  himself  wrote  to  General  McClellau  during 
the  fifteen  months  of  his   command.     Eead  them   and   re- 
read them,  and  you  will  agree  that   they  evince,  in    a  re- 
markable degree  for  a  civilian,  the  military  sense.     Having 
committed    to    that   officer  an  army  of   the    flower   of  the 
land,   he   followed   it  with  an   interest   alike   parental   and 
patriotic,  studying  the  map  of  its  marches    and  its  hopes, 
breasting  back  while  he  could  the  impatience  of  the  country, 
at  all  times  suggesting  his  advice  kindly  to  its  chief,  and 
finally,  in  those  dark  days  which  have  made  the  name  of  the 
Chickahominy  historical,  transmitting  a  series  of  despatches 
from  his  own  pen  which  could  not  have  been  better  if  he 
had  possessed  the  genius  of  a  soldier.     He  saw  through  the 
objective  and  the  consequential  of  campaigns  quite  as  clearly 
and  quite  as  far  as  most  of  the  generals  who  wore  his  stars. 
Under  the  pressure  of  military  repulses  he  rose  large  as  the 
occasion,  and  when  his  commanders  were  changing  their  base 
he  held  hopefully  to  his  own.     When  retreat  and  disinte- 
gration had  destroyed  the  last  chance  of  entering  Eichmond 
that  season,  and  his  chieftain  called  many  times  again  for 
reinforcements,  he  telegraphed  back  a  volume  of  present  his- 
tory and  future  destiny  in  a  few  short,  sharp,  kind,  hopeful 
words :  "  If  we  had  a  million  of  men  we  could  not  get  them 
to  you  in  time.     We  have  not  the  men.     If  you  are  not 
strong  enough  to  face  the  enemy,  .  .  .  save  the  army  at  all 
events,  even  if  you  fall  back  to  Fort  Monroe.      We  still  have 
strength  enough  in  the  country,  AND  will  bring  it  out."     He 
had  a  large  power  of  patience,  which  this  war  required.     The 
people  of  the  Nortli  demanded  a  change  of  generals  after 
each  misfortune,  but  he  saw  difficulties  they  could  not  see, 
and  tried  one  after  the  other  long    and   tolerantly    tiU   he 


ABEAHAM  LINCOLN.  91 

found  the  right  one.  That  is  the  highest  proof  of  adminis- 
trative talent,  in  war,  which  disregards  a  clamor,  rejects 
instrumentalities  only  after  they  have  been  exhausted,  and 
feels  its  way  along  the  rounds  of  failure  till  it  finds  the 
choice  that  can  sound  the  awful  charge  of  victory.  And 
though  his  arch-rival  at  Eichmond  had  the  consummate 
education  and  prestige  of  a  soldier,  the  murmurs  which 
swelled  from  his  councils  and  his  fields  against  him  had 
double  the  volume  of  those  which  rose  to  the  ears  of  your 
President  from  the  fretful  loyalty  of  the  North  ;  and  I  venture 
the  prediction,  that  if  that  history  can  ever  be  fully  written, 
as  ours  will  be,  in  military  comprehension  and  appreciation, 
in  that  gift  of  insight  which  is  the  product  of  nature  quite  as 
much  as  of  art  or  the  academy,  which  reduces  the  involu- 
tions of  armies  and  campaigns  to .  simplicity  and  analysis, 
even  in  this,  all  this,  which  belongs  to  arms,  our  plain  civ- 
ilian will  be  proved  to  have  outwitted  the  other,  educated 
soldier  though  he  was. 

Then  I  cannot  help  thinking  that,  as  a  part  of  the  military 
questions  he  had  to  treat,  there  were  such  grave  matters  of 
what  I  may  call  legislative  jurisprudence  as  had  not  been 
thought  of  before.  To  weaken  the  rebellion  by  the  destruc- 
tion of  its  civil  rights,  and  this  alike  for  purposes  of  punish- 
ment to  treason  and  of  strength  to  loyalty,  —  this,  under  our 
Constitution,  which  never  contemplated  such  a  crisis  as  the 
present,  and  under  the  mutual  relations  of  national  and  State 
sovereignty,  the  delicacy  of  which  had  not  been  apprehended 
until  now,  required  a  statesmanship  scarcely  less  than  judi- 
cial. Would  Heaven  that  our  own  Webster  could  have  lived 
for  this,  to  have  sat  as  premier  by  the  side  of  Lincoln,  to  have 
illustrated  with  unprecedented  effect  his  colossal  gifts !  It 
was  a  great  thought  —  of  withdrawing  from  half  a  people  the 
rights  of  a  national  citizenship  and  of  indefeasible  republican 
immunities.  The  Congress  and  the  President  did  not  alto- 
gether agree.  This  is  not  the  time  to  decide  between  them. 
Congress  spoke  the  policy  of  prompt  and  final  deliverance 


92  ADDRESSES  OF  ALEXANDER  11.   BULLOCK. 

from  the  hateful  aristocracy  whose  alleged  rights,  if  not  ut- 
terly extinguished  in  war,  might  prove  a  clog  to  freedom  and 
nationality  in  peace.  The  President  endeavored  to  blend 
and  reconcile  the  supposed  elements  of  the  discordant  rights 
of  rebels  under  the  Constitution  and  of  loyalty  in  war.  I 
only  allude  to  the  subject  to  call  your  attention  to  the  depth 
of  the  matter  which  underlay  the  military  policy  of  the  Ad- 
ministration, and  to  solicit  your  attention  to  the  message  of 
President  Lincoln,  July,  1862,  in  which,  while  he  deferred  in 
modesty  to  the  representatives  of  the  people,  he  stood  upon  his 
own  responsibility,  and  displayed  in  bold  relief  the  abilities 
of  a  technical  lawyer  and  a  constitutional  jurist.  There  has 
been  no  better  passage  in  his  life  by  which  he  could  have 
illustrated  his  capacity  for  the  comprehensive  field  of  an  in- 
terstate and  national  war. 

And  then  I  reckon  it  another  striking  feature  of  his  mili- 
tary administration,  that  under  all  circumstances  he  took 
accountability  and  censure  to  himself  We  may  acknowl- 
edge, once  for  all,  that  there  was  a  modest,  conscious  power 
in  that ;  for  no  empirical  experimentalist  would  have  trusted 
himself  to  such  a  test,  and  the  man  must  be  well  grounded  in 
the  popular  confidence  who  can  bear  it.  Point  me  to  any 
one  person  in  the  British  Administration  who  was  willing  to 
stand  out  solitary  and  responsible  when  the  people  criticised 
the  campaigns  of  their  generals  in  the  peninsula  of  Spain  or 
the  Crimea.  Pather  than  that,  the  responsibility  could  only 
be  found  distributed  amoncr  the  unknown  and  mvstical  im- 
personalities  of  the  Cabinet  and  the  Privy  Council.  Your 
President,  on  the  other  hand,  sought  no  shelter  from  criticism. 
In  the  first  year  of  the  war,  when  Congress  passed  a  vote  of 
censure  upon  one  of  his  Department  Secretaries,  he  sent  them 
a  message  assuming  the  responsibility  to  himself;  Jackson 
would  have  done  the  same,  but  no  other  man  since  his  day. 
In  the  second  year,  when  another  Secretary  of  War  was  ar- 
raigned by  large  numbers  of  the  people  for  having  enforced 
the  failure  of  McClullan  in  the  Peninsula  by  withholding 


ABEAHAM   LINCOLN.  93 

reinforcements,  Mr.  Lincoln  came  gallantly  to  tlie  response 
and  claimed  that  the  attack  should  be  pointed  against  his 
own  breast ;  and  his  despatches  to  that  General,  since  pub- 
lished, show  that  he  could  M^ell  afford  to  receive  the  attack. 
He  wrote  his  own  messages,  generally  directed  his  command- 
ers, not  regularly  consulted  his  Cabinet,  and,  I  believe,  fre- 
quently overruled  them  when  he  did.     He  felt  that  he  was 
personally  accountable  to  the  people  for  the  triumphant  de- 
fence of  the  Union.     He,  and  no  other,  before  his  election, 
and  in  his  Inaugural,  had  drawn  the  outlines  within  which 
the  glory  of  his  country  might  be  found,  and  now  like  a  wise 
man  he  relied  on  his  own  prayerful  study  and  on  his  own 
keen  instincts  for  ability  to  fill  out  the  outlines  with  the 
colors  that  shall  give  eternal  beauty  to  the  picture  of  united 
America.     In  this  I  admire  equally  his  magnanimity  and  his 
courage.     Fortunate  for  us,  that  he  was  willing  to  take  such 
responsibility.     Many  and  many  a  time,  when  cypress  instead 
of  laurel  bound  the  eagles  of  the  army,  happy  and  hopeful 
were  we  all  if  onlv  we  mis:ht  believe  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
ordered  the  risk  and  the  shock ;  we  cared  little  for  his  min- 
isters, but  we  trusted  unsuspectingly  in  him ;  when  our  re- 
proaches rose  almost  to  mutiny  in  the  North,  if  only  he  would 
say,  in  me,  in  me  vertite  tela,  from  that  moment  as  by  a  charm 
the  tumult  subsided.     It  is  a  great  relief  in  the  discourage- 
ments and  troubles  of  war,  to  rest  upon  the  one  man  who  is 
above  all  the  others ;  it  is  a  greater  thing  if  that  man  can 
justify  and  warrant  such  a  rest  and  solace.     In  this  power  of 
impressment  is  a  good  part  of  a  ruler's  greatness.     And  thus 
we  trace  to  him  even  the  brilliant  conduct  of  others;  for 
since  he  willed  it,  they  performed  it.     It  is  the  eulogy  of 
Lincoln  to  say  that  much  which  others  performed  he  sug- 
gested, and  was  willing  to  be  held  responsible  for  it.     Said  the 
ablest  of  Englishmen,  "  The  minister  who  does  those  things 
is  a  great  man ;  but  the  king  who  desires  that  they  should 
be  done  is  a  far  greater." 

How  can  I  within  the  Kmits  of  these  remarks  speak  fitly 


94  ADDKESSES  OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

or  sufficiently  of  the  part  he  bore  in  the  cause  of  emanci- 
pation ?  Think  what  height  and  depth  stood  in  tlie  way,  — 
how  history  and  Providence  only  shed  darkness  over  his  ap- 
proaches, — how  the  free  States  were  rent  by  conflicting  opin- 
ions, —  how  he  had  to  institute  a  new  policy,  which,  if  it  might 
succeed,  would  invest  the  Government  with  immortal  life, 
but  if  it  should  fail,  would  wreck  the  nation  and  shroud  his 
own  name  in  ignominy  forevermore.  It  was  a  necessity 
which  he  had  not  anticipated.  It  took  fifteen  months  of  war 
to  discover  the  strength  of  the  rebellion  and  the  weakness  of 
the  Government ;  and  when  the  alternative  came  at  length,  it 
presented  sombre  and  frightful  proportions.  To  destroy  slav- 
ery he  had  not  been  elected,  nor  for  that  had  he  called  the 
people  to  arms ;  the  only  duty  for  him,  and  that  which  he 
judged  most  pleasing  to  God,  was  to  save  this  Union  from 
dissolution.  You  remember  how,  after  our  flag  had  begun  to 
trail  in  defeat,  voices  here  and  there  raised  this  issue  upon 
him  in  terms  alike  beseeching  and  threatening.  Still  what 
could  he  do  better  or  more  than  balance  the  conflict  of  magis- 
terial  ethics,  study  the  contradictory  omens  of  the  sky,  feel 
the  heart  of  his  country,  and  search  after  the  will  of  the  last 
arbiter  ?  Undoubtedly,  he  thought  the  necessity  of  emanci- 
pation miglit  come,  probably  it  would  come ;  but  it  would 
come  as  a  question  of  arms  and  must  be  supported  by  public 
opinion.  That  was  the  day  of  aU  Avhich  tried  him  as  a 
statesman. 

In  the  presence  of  such  a  question,  large  enough  to  occupy 
the  thoughts  and  agitations  of  a  generation,  behold  the  unam- 
bitious practical  statesmanship  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  No  age 
has  been  blessed  with  a  better.  "We  are  constantly  looking 
back  through  the  coloring  medium  of  distance  to  the  brilliant 
lights  of  the  past,  and  desponding  over  the  present  and  the 
future.  But  the  statesmen  of  one  age  are  unfitted  for  the 
requirements  of  another.  Peel  was  as  great  for  liis  time  as 
Chatham  or  Bolingbroke  for  theirs.  From  the  magnificent 
success  of  our  late  President  we  have  learned  the  right  defi- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  95 

nition  of  a  "wise  ruler.  If  it  be  Lis  labor  to  initiate  a  measure 
that  shall  stand  out  among  the  beneficent  acts  that  mark 
historical  periods,  it  is  his  still  more  painful  and  vexatious 
work  to  commend  it  to  public  approval ;  he  has  to  enlighten 
the  ignorance  of  some,  and  to  convince  the  intelligence  of 
others ;  he  has  to  combat  honest  prejudices,  and  modify  in- 
terested opposition;  if  he  would  move  with  strength  and 
certainty  towards  the  success  which  is  ahead,  he  has  to  halt 
in  his  steps,  and  clip  his  propositions,  and  qualify  his  words, 
and  emasculate  his  theories ;  if  he  would  be  strong  to  place 
his  country  among  the  positions  his  genius  has  pictured  for 
her,  he  must  apparently  enfeeble  his  policy  to  conciliate  one 
class  and  clog  it  with  burdens  to  satisfy  another.  The  mod- 
ern statesman  must  combine  patient  temper,  persevering  will, 
and  sound  knowledge  of  men ;  he  must  discern  the  present 
tone  and  probable  direction  of  public  opinion ;  he  must  dis- 
tinguish between  intelligent  and  unintelligent  censure,  and 
he  must  know  how  much  of  public  outcry  can  safely  be  dis- 
regarded, as  well  as  that  amount  which  he  cannot  afford  to 
withstand. 

Such  statesmanlike  qualities  Mr.  Lincoln  illustrated  in 
those  many  months  of  hesitation,  anxiety,  seeming  then  al- 
most inability  to  act,  which  ushered  in  that  day  on  which  he 
emerged  from  his  closet,  bearing  in  his  own  arms  the  efful- 
gent guidon  of  EMANCIPATION.  I  religiously  believe  that  he 
was  right,  all  along,  from  the  stammering  beginning  to  the 
clarion-like  finality.  You  goaded  him  too  soon,  too  often, 
and  too  long; :  he  was  the  while  in  consultation  with  the 
counsellors  around  him,  with  his  little  learning  and  his  large 
reflection,  with  all  of  history  he  had  read,  with  the  fathers 
and  the  prophets.  While  editors  and  orators  stirred  strife 
and  commotion  in  the  country  and  in  the  Senate  Chamber 
over  his  long  withholding  of  the  decree,  he  continued  im- 
passive in  his  purpose,  and  remembered  that  one  of  the 
instructive  characters  in  his  favorite  Bunyan  was  "a  grave 
and  beautiful  damsel  named  Discretion."     And  so  I  conceive 


96  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  II.   BULLOCK. 

that  lie  was  right  upon  this  question  in  that  whicli  some  of 
us  thought  his  dalliance  with  the  States  of  the  border,  rig-ht 
also  when  he  countermanded  Fremont's  military  order  of 
freedom,  right  again  when  he  recalled  the  similar  rescript  of 
Hunter,  right  as  well  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Greeley,  and  right 
at  last  when  the  angels  announced  the  hour  and  he  sent  forth 
the  Decree  of  Emancipation  triumphant  and  irrevocable 
while  the  earth  shall  stand.  Then  he  said :  "  I  have  done 
this  after  a  very  full  deliberation,  and  under  a  very  heavy 
and  solemn  sense  of  responsibility.  I  can  only  trust  in  God 
I  have  made  no  mistake.  It  is  now  for  the  country  and  the 
world  to  pass  judgment." 

Yes,  yes,  that  judgment  his  country  and  the  world  have 
already  passed.  His  returning  armies  share  their  laurels 
with  him  and  pay  their  resounding  fusillade  over  the  turf 
which  covers  their  father  and  their  friend  !  But  higher  hon- 
ors  await  him  !  A  nation  rescued  from  the  tyranny  whose 
roots  have  spread  over  two  centuries,  never  relenting,  never 
appeased,  a  race  delivered  from  thraldom  and  elevated  to  the 
hopes  of  civilization  and  Christianity,  shall  w'alk  to  the  beat 
of  peaceful  marches  about  his  tomb  till  the  resurrection ! 
And  wherever  Freedom  shall  have  a  home,  or  America  a 
name,  or  Washington  a  praise,  over  the  whole  globe,  mankind 
shall  revere  the  memory  of  him  who  sealed  the  baptism  of 
emancipation  with  his  own  blood  ! 

And  I  desire  for  myself  to  express  the  opinion  that  no 
monument-  that  may  be  erected  to  commemorate  his  name 
can  rise  so  high  or  endure  so  long  as  that  whose  foundations 
shall  be  laid  in  those  immutable  and  universal  rights  of  man 
for  which  he  gave  his  life.  As  the  emancipation  of  four  mil- 
lions became  the  necessity  of  his  policy  for  the  preservation 
of  the  Union,  so  let  us  extend  to  the  emancipated  race  all  the 
rights  of  citizenship,  if  we  would  make  our  safety  certain  and 
final.  If,  under  a  democratic  government,  universal  suffrage 
is  worth  anything  in  the  Nortli,  then  is  universal  suffrage  a 
paramount  necessity  in  the  South.     Is  it  republican,  demo- 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  97 

cratic,  or  safe,  to  exclude  from  the  polls  a  majority  of  the  loyal 
population  of  the  Southern  States  ?  Your  sons  have  been 
maimed  and  slain  in  vain  if  the  aristocracy  which  was  the 
cause  and  support  of  the  w^ar  shall  not  be  shorn  of  every  dis- 
tinction, if  the  oligarchy  shall  not  have  its  roots  plucked  to 
their  uttermost  fibre  out  of  the  land. 

I  do  not  forget  to-day  that  probably  one  half  of  all  those 
who  now  help  to  extend  the  funeral  train  have,  at  one  time 
or  another  in  four  years,  pronounced  their  complaint  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  too  much  the  follower,  not  sufficiently  the  leader, 
of  public  opinion.  The  stern  tribunal  of  history  adjusts  all 
such  accounts  as  that.  The  immortal  Washington  opened  his 
mission  at  Cambridge  under  the  same  necessities  of  limitation 
that  have  bounded  the  horizon  of  Lincoln.  He  entered  the 
war  in  advance  of  the  issue,  and  had  to  await  the  develop- 
ments of  events  wdiich  made  separation  and  independence  the 
sublime  ultimatum.  I  concede  that  the  late  President  waited 
on  public  opinion ;  and  when  you  reflect  how  abnormal  and 
stupendous  was  the  cause  he  had  to  manage,  I  will  thank 
you  to  tell  me  if  waiting  on  public  opinion  was  not  waiting 
on  Providence  itself.  Tell  me  if  the  success  or  loss  of  the 
whole,  to  us  and  to  distant  generations,  did  not  depend  on 
the  spirit  of  the  people.  Public  sentiment  is  the  arbiter  of 
republican  destinies.  But  public  sentiment, — what  is  it  here 
with  us  but  the  product,  not  precisely  the  average  quantity, 
but  the  result  and  the  product  of  the  intuitions,  instincts, 
sagacities,  and  reflections  of  the  millions  of  America,  —  the 
crystallization  of  the  myriad  forces  of  democracy,  —  to  be 
ascertained  by  the  President  only  after  incessant  labor  and 
study  and  retrospection;  then,  when  with  satisfactory  cer- 
tainty ascertained,  to  be  not  only  consulted  but  to  be  received 
and  accepted  as  in  the  nature  of  inspiration  and  decree  to 
the  magistrate.  He  who  keeps  pace  with  this  requisition  is 
neither  quite  a  leader  nor  quite  a  follower,  but  a  representa- 
tive, administrator,  and  executor,  —  all  and  everything  which 
a  democratic  constitution  will  ask  for  or  can  permit.     Mr. 

7 


98  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

Lincoln  understood  and  adopted  this  construction  of  states- 
manship better  than  I  can  analyze  it.  He  sought  neither  to 
lead  jniblic  opinion  nor  consented  to  follow  it.  No  man 
could,  with  greater  force  or  justice  than  he,  repeat  the  remark 
which  Edmund  Burke  made  in  his  own  justification  to  his 
constituents,  —  that  he  did  not  follow  public  opinion,  but 
only  went  out  to  meet  it  on  the  way.  This  alone  gave 
your  President  his  power.  I  do  not  forget  that  there  are 
occasions  in  which  the  statesman,  like  the  leader  in  the  field, 
may  organize  and  direct  the  strategic  movements  of  public 
action.  But  in  the  march  of  civilization  issues  ripen,  events 
come,  and  men  advance  to  the  conflict.  A  man,  an  accident, 
a  trifle,  hastens  or  retards  the  battle,  but  the  single  man  does 
not  make  the  revolution  nor  quell  the  storm.  In  the  signifi- 
cant epochs  of  history  or  final  clash  of  arms,  the  statesman 
can  discern  the  occasions,  the  opportunities,  and  the  neces- 
sities of  the  hour,  but  his  greatness  and  glory  are  largely  the 
product  of  the  times.  An  English  journalist  has  just  said  of 
the  lamented  Mr.  Cobden,  that  "  his  limitations  as  a  states- 
man constituted  his  greatness  as  a  representative  thinker." 
I  like  the  expression  and  the  philosophy  of  it.  I  could  coin 
no  better  phrase  with  which  to  define  the  wise  statesmanship 
of  Mr.  Cobden's  friend  on  this  side  of  the  water.     Seeking 

NOT  TO  TRANSCEND  HIS  LIMITATIONS  AS  A  STATESMAN,  HE  MADE 
HIMSELF   THE   REPRESENTATIVE   THINKER   OF   HIS   COUNTRY   AND 

HIS  TIME.  That  is  his  glory  to-day,  and  can  never  become  his 
weakness  or  his  shame.  Of  course  such  an  understanding  of 
the  policy  and  the  duty  of  a  national  magistrate  subjects  him, 
as  Mr.  Lincoln  for  a  time  was  subjected,  to  the  imputation  of 
over-cautious  timidity;  but  a  just  posterity,  nay,  the  sagacious 
present  generation,  M'ill  expunge  the  criticism  and  open  to 
him  the  pathway  to  justice.  So,  if  I  remember  correctly,  the 
policy  of  Fabius  was  by  some  called  cowardice,  or  at  least 
timidity,  in  his  day ;  but  I  believe  it  prepared  the  way  for 
the  avenging  armies  of  Scipio.  So,  as  I  have  read,  the  vene- 
rated Washington  was  characterized  and  criticised  in  his  time 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  99 

also ;  but  I  have  the  impression  that  Yorktown  and  the  Con- 
stitution and  eight  years  of  magisterial  glory  constituted  his 
vindication.  So,  as  I  have  observed,  Lincoln  was  summoned 
to  submit  to  the  same  test  of  fame ;  and  so  we  all  see  this 
day  that  his  name  ascends  henceforth  among  the  stars. 

His  speech,  though  not  uniform,  was  not  unworthy  of  his 
action.  Consider  liow  opposite  are  the  requisitions  in  this 
respect  which  empires  make  upon  their  rulers,  and  take  the 
two  leadiug  powers  of  the  East  and  the  West  for  the  illustra- 
tion. The  Czar  of  Russia,  —  blessed  be  his  fortunes  evermore 
for  that  early  and  timely  friendship  which  he  bestowed  upon 
our  country  and  our  President,  when  the  cabinets  on  either 
shore  of  the  fitful  and  vengeful  Channel  offered  us  only  the 
scowling  welcome  of  intimidation  and  hypocrisy,  —  to  whom, 
some  day,  in  the  alternations  of  our  internationalities,  the 
shade  of  assassinated  innocence  shall  stalk  in  terror  and 
retribution  over  all  the  seas  they  arrogate,  —  that  Czar  of 
Russia,  all  the  way  from  Peter  or  Catherine  to  the  latest 
Alexander,  wields  dominion  with  action  and  without  words. 
That  is  the  condition  of  his  rule,  nor  is  it  our  business  or 
our  pleasure  to  find  fault  with  it  there.  The  genius  of 
America  is  another.  Here  the  President  is  the  selected 
agent  of  the  people,  and  must  respond  whenever  they  call 
for  his  reasons.  No  President  before  Lincoln  ever  had  so 
many  and  such  calls.  They  came  from  Congress,  from  every 
State,  from  associations,  from  delegations,  from  individual 
men,  from  spontaneous  assemblages  under  a  hundred  moon- 
lights on  the  lawn  around  the  executive  mansion.  He  had 
a  word  for  them  all.  True  it  is,  he  had  still  that  greatest 
gift  of  a  magistrate,  —  the  power  of  reticence,  the  masterly 
talent  of  suppression,  whenever  the  occasion  required  it.  He 
let  them  off  with  his  joke  and  his  Western  wit  whenever  that 
was  all  they  ought  to  have.  In  this  sometimes,  and  too  fre- 
quently, he  reduced  the  dignity  of  his  office ;  but  it  was  the 
relief-valve  which  he  had  received  from  his  Maker.  Yet, 
beside  all  this,  so  many  were  his  necessities  of  public  speaking, 


100  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

tliat  no  one  of  his  predecessors  had  been  tried  in  that  way 
so  often.  He  spoke  good  things  from  the  windows  of  the 
White  House,  as  he  had  spoken  them  before  on  the  prairies. 
They  shall  be  handed  over  to  you  and  to  your  children,  and 
you  shall  say  that  I  do  not  praise  them  too  highly.  You  shall 
find  some  shade  and  beauty  beneath  their  pine  and  oaken 
leaves.  You  shall  say  that  he  spoke  and  wrote  witli  much  of 
the  simplicity,  quaintness,  and  power  of  Franklin,  and  the 
elemental  mastery  of  our  tongue.  Many  were  his  occasional 
speeches,  and  one  of  them  at  least  will  be  imperishable  for 
its  felicity  and  brevity.  Lord  Macaulay  assures  us  that  Bar- 
rister Somers,  in  a  speech  of  five  minutes  in  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench,  established  the  enduring  fame  of  an  orator. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  by  a  speech  of  only  that  duration  at  Gettysburg, 
divided  the  honors  of  the  day  with  the  transcendent  Everett, 
and  inscribed  his  name  on  the  tombstone  of  every  soldier 
whose  ashes  there  await  the  rising  of  the  quick  and  the  dead. 
His  state  papers  are  more  lasting  than  these.  His  messages 
to  Congress  have  already  passed  into  the  national  literature ; 
they  were  read  at  the  time  in  the  courts  of  France  and  Eng- 
land ;  and  though  they  may  have  been  obliterated  or  obscured 
there  by  royal  art,  they  will  reappear  for  luminous  and  pro- 
phetic reading  when  Europe  and  America  shall  settle  their 
accounts. 

In  these  state  papers  posterity  will  recognize  a  style  of 
power  that  is  not  more  unique  in  its  form  than  in  its  pro- 
duced effect.  It  is  in  sympathy  with  the  national  character- 
istics and  with  the  traditional  choice  of  the  people.  His 
mind  was  acute,  logical,  and  subtle ;  and  that  they  appreciate. 
In  the  time  of  her  casuistry  and  refinement  the  public  teach- 
ers of  Greece  found  no  heartier  reception  than  wit  and  reason 
find  now  in  America  from  Maine  to  Nevada.  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  studied  the  first  and  second  sight  of  his  countrymen,  till 
he  could  address  them  with  a  direction  that  seldom  failed. 
Then  he  secured  their  favor,  and  I  may  say  pleased  their 
senses,  by  a  geniality  and  humor  which  smoothed  their  asper- 


ABEAHAM   LINCOLX.  101 

ities,  conquered  their  prejudices,  and  attracted  their  hearts  to 
him  and  his  cause.  Even  in  the  winter  of  their  discontent, 
when  arms  were  unsuccessful  and  taxes  were  high,  he  led 
them,  as  through  the  gorgeousness  and  serenity  of  an  Indian 
summer,  to  new  campaigns  and  heavier  burdens  and  coming 
victories.  From  '62  to  '64  such  was  the  power  of  his  written 
and  spoken  words.  In  statement  and  argument  he  struck 
deeper  and  richer  veins  than  his  supposed  education  would 
have  suggested.  I  think  we  are  quite  apt  to  be  in  error  as  to 
this  whole  matter  of  education.  When  and  where  did  Ham- 
ilton acquire  his  ?  —  for  he  left  college  a  boy,  before  his  time, 
and  saw  no  schools  afterwards  save  the  camp,  the  cabinet,  and 
the  bar ;  yet  he  proved  the  finest  intellect  of  his  time.  In- 
form me,  if  you  can,  whence  came  the  education  of  Lincoln, 
who  never  trod  the  floors  of  a  college.  I  only  know  that  we 
do  not  know  what  may  have  been  his  study  in  a  lazy,  unlim- 
ited, unconditioned  Western  life.  I  do  know,  what  he  stated 
when  last  he  was  in  New  England  five  years  ago,  on  the  eve 
and  in  the  expectation  of  his  honors,  that,  after  he  had  tried 
the  study  of  the  law  and  had  found  himself  cornered,  he 
went  into  retirement  for  some  mouths,  and  studied  Euclid 
till  he  understood  it  from  root  to  outermost  branch.  And  so 
doubtless  he  went  through  more  than  we  know  of  the  strus- 
gle  and  ecstasy  of  educating  himself  However  tliat  may 
have  been,  and  whenever  or  wherever  he  may  have  acquired 
the  power,  you  and  I  know  that  he  could  reason  with 
a  straightforwardness  and  incisiveness  which  Harvard  or 
Princeton  might  be  proud  to  honor.  This  is  not  the  extrava- 
ganza of  eulogy ;  peruse,  as  I  have  perused,  his  written  and 
spoken  addresses,  from  Illinois  in  '58  to  his  last  and  singular 
Inaugural,  and  you  shall  say  the  same.  I  will  not  particular- 
ize out  of  them  all,  save  one.  Take  up  and  read  critically 
his  published  letter  to  Erastus  Corning  and  his  committee, 
covering  the  whole  question  of  the  suspension  of  the  habeas 
corpus  and  the  subjection  of  the  civil  to  military  law,  and  it 
shall  be  your  impartial  judgment  that  in  a  broad  statement 


102  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

of  public  safety  and  historical  law  it  is  not  unworthy  of 
Hamilton,  in  jiurity  and  legitimacy  of  style  it  is  scarcely  in- 
ferior to  the  papers  of  the  same  master,  and  in  just  com- 
prehensiveness and  ingenuous  patriotism  it  would  reflect 
credit  upon  the  tender  heart  and  robust  nationalism  of 
Washington.  I  admired  it  when  it  first  appeared,  and  now 
after  a  second  and  third  reading  I  think  it  to  be  tlie  best  of 
all  his  papers. 

The  moral  and  humane  qualities  of  the  good  President  set 
off  and  gilded  his  term.  Did  you  ever  know  a  potentate 
whose  rule  bore  such  blazonry  of  events,  civic  and  martial, 
and  whose  daily  life  was  so  simple,  plain,  and  temperate  ?  I 
believe  tliat  not  Sir  Matthew  Hale  kept  sterner  vigil  over 
private  and  official  hours,  over  the  shrine  of  the  domestic 
sanctuary.  Success  was  his  aim  and  duty  his  guide,  and  he 
saw  little  time  for  display  or  amusement  or  ostentation. 
In  four  years  of  labor,  which  would  have  broken  like  a  reed 
any  man  of  less  iron  cast,  he  not  once  got  time  to  revisit  the 
State  and  city  of  his  love,  seldom  left  the  cajiital  unless  to 
visit  the  tents,  hospitals,  or  graves  of  his  soldiers,  and  once 
only  came  so  far  as  the  North  to  consult  on  the  national 
safety  with  a  retired  chieftain.  He  gave  attentive  ear  to 
humblest  men  and  women,  was  as  faithful  in  small  acts  of 
kindness  as  in  great  acts  of  justice,  as  amiable  in  little  things 
in  private  as  in  high  matters  of  state. 

His  magnanimity  became  proverbial.  His  soul  was  no 
nursery  for  a  brood  of  resentments.  He  conferred  the  bars 
and  stars  and  eagles  of  war  generously  upon  those  who  had 
not  given  him  a  vote  or  a  sympathy,  if  only  they  were  true 
to  the  flag.  He  bared  his  own  breast  to  the  brunt  of  many 
an  assault  aimed  at  Cameron  or  Stanton  or  McClellan,  al- 
lowed them  the  honors,  and  took  to  himself  the  swarming 
reproaches.  In  a  serenade  on  the  evening  after  his  second 
election,  when  the  impassioned  majority  would  have  dishon- 
ored the  name  of  his  rival,  he  spoke  for  him  gi'and  words  of 
charity  and  justice.     A  specific  instance  of  his  trutliful  mag- 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  103 

nanimity  I  must  unfold  to  you,  as  it  has  been  related  to  me 
upon  the  best  of  authority.  On  a  certain  morning  many 
months  before  Chief  Justice  Taney  died,  his  immediate  de- 
cease was  pronounced  in  Washington  as  certain.  In  anti- 
cipation of  the  supposed  impending  death  our  senior  Senator 
called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  and  discussed  with  him  the  impor- 
tance of  appointing  Mr.  Chase  to  fill  the  expected  vacancy. 
The  President  at  length  gave  the  assurance.  But  the  Chief 
Justice  renewed  his  lease  of  life,  and  many  months  lapsed 
away.  Meanwhile,  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Chase,  in 
the  council  of  administration,  divergences  arose.  At  length 
in  July,  '64,  the  latter  laid  the  key  of  the  exchequer  upon 
the  President's  table.  He  accepted  the  resignation  without 
hesitation.  Then  came  Senators  to  his  room  to  urge  the  re- 
appointment or  restoration  of  Mr.  Chase  to  the  Treasury, — 
for  that  juncture  reflected  dark  shadows  over  our  finances. 
"  No,  no,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  for  between  him  and  me  there 
is  an  incompatibility  for  the  same  council.  But  this,  you 
will  bear  in  mind,  would  not  prevent  me  from  honoring  Mr. 
Chase  in  any  other  high  sphere  of  the  Government."  Half  a 
year  afterwards  the  Chief  Justice  died,  but  not  before  Mr. 
Chase  had  sprinkled  along  his  travels  in  New  England  sharp 
and  disparaging  words  of  criticism  upon  the  President.  And 
yet  the  same  President,  faithful  to  his  promise  and  his  duty, 
forgetful  of  wrong  and  injustice  to  himself,  conferred  upon 
his  late  secretary  the  appointment,  and  placed  the  jurispru- 
dence of  the  United  States  and  the  rights  of  human  nature 
under  perpetual  obligations  to  his  magnanimity. 

He  believed  in  God.  You  know  how  he  left  his  home  for 
Washington  in  February,  '61,  in  his  parting  words  requesting 
that  his  neighbors  would  array  in  his  support  the  mysterious 
power  of  the  legions  of  prayer ;  and  after  he  had  assumed  his 
high  trust  at  the  capital  he  cultivated  that  religious  life 
which  is  the  best  guaranty  of  a  nation's  triumph.  While 
war,  according  to  its  prescriptive  laws,  opened  all  the  avenues 
of  inconsideration  and  levity  to  others,  he  drew  his  consola- 


104  ADDRESSES    OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

tions  and  refreshed  his  courage  at  tlie  never-failing  fountains 
of  Divine  mercy.  It  M^as  this,  added  to  his  humorous  and 
sunny  views,  which  Lore  him  upward  and  onward  through  such 
a  r^(/i))tc  of  four  years  as  never  had  been  allotted  to  a  head 
that  wore  a  crown.  And  therefore  all  the  people  believed  in 
him.  More  distinctly  than  any  other  President  since  Wash- 
ington he  irradiated  the  official  pathway  at  all  times  and  in 
all  places  with  the  conspicuous  publicity  of  Christian  ethics. 
When  Canning  in  Parliament  opposed  the  humanity  of  slav- 
ery abolition,  he  declared  in  classic  words  that  it  was  imprac- 
ticable to  apply  to  politics  those  pure  abstract  principles 
which  are  indispensable  to  the  excellence  of  private  ethics. 
That  was  English,  and  almost  worthy  of  a  court  whose  official 
philanthropy  is  now  proved  to  have  been  another  name  for 
the  amljition  of  commercial  and  political  ascendency.  Ac- 
cordingly Great  Britain  could  not  conceal  surprise  at  the 
novelty  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  theory  of  Christian  ethics  as  a  rule 
for  official  conduct ;  and  the  difference  between  us  will  have 
to  be  postponed  to  the  adjustments  which  are  yet  to  come  of 
American  and  European  ideas. 

Your  President  was  kind  and  tender  to  a  fault.  This  led 
him  into  some  mistakes,  but  his  magnanimity  corrected  tliem. 
So  he  yielded  somewhat  to  the  rebel  Campbell  at  Eichmond, 
and  gave  what  might  have  proved  a  fatal  order  to  Weitzel,  but 
revoked  it  on  the  last  day  of  his  life  when  he  discovered  his 
error.  I  suspect  that  if  he  had  lived  for  the  reconstruction, 
he  would  have  made  several  such  mistakes  ;  but  I  know 
that  he  would  have  rectified  and  retrieved  them.  I  do  not 
think  he  would  have  executed  the  traitor  who  set  up  as  his 
rival  for  history.  Yet,  after  all,  as  the  morning  of  victory 
opened  on  his  siglit,  and  as  the  hour  of  his  own  translation 
drew  nigh,  I  love  to  recur  to  the  benignity  of  his  purposes 
towards  the  most  wicked  of  men.  In  his  last  consultation 
with  his  Cabinet,  a  few  hours  before  his  departure,  his  heart 
melted  before  the  appalling  claims  of  Justice.  I  think,  how- 
ever, he  only  meant  to  say,  — 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  105 

"  I  shall  temper  so 
Justice  with  mercy,  as  may  illustrate  most 
Them  fully  satisfied,  and  thee  appease." 

Nay,  more,  I  catcli  the  language  of  his  hist  Inaugural  for  his 

eulogy,  —  "WITH    MALICE    TOWARD    NONE,   WITH   CHARITY   FOR 

ALL."  Lofty  words !  He  knew  not  what  those  men  had  in 
preparation  for  him,  and  the  Lord  in  his  infinite  mercy  was 
preparing  him  to  go  at  their  bidding,  whispering  as  he  as- 
cended, "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do!" 

As  you  look  backward  along  the  galleries  of  history,  you 
are  surprised  when  you  think  how  few  are  found  whose  fame 
has  outlived  their  period  or  country,  how  few  have  passed 
into  the  constellations  of  immortal  light.  Those  only  are 
privileged  with  that  imperishable  distinction  whose  record 
gleams  forth  above  the  wreck  of  contemporary  annals,  whose 
labors  place  an  entire  nation,  or  many  generations,  or  all  man- 
kind, under  the  remembrance  of  debt  and  obligation.  To 
that  judgment,  ubiquitous  and  everlasting,  AVashington  passed 
sixty-five  years  ago.  Prom  that  day  to  ours,  out  of  the  long 
list  of  American  Presidents,  however  marked  their  own  talent 
or  their  own  period,  no  one  of  them  all  before  has,  in  the  full 
sense  of  universal  humanity  and  fame,  given  special  dignity, 
or  unlimited  praise,  or  immortal  renown,  to  America  through 
time  and  space.  But  such  has  been  the  mission  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  However  we  should  have  estimated  him  four  years 
ago  as  to  the  limitation  of  his  previous  life,  or  his  natural 
parts,  or  his  acquired  culture,  now  that  the  four  years  have 
passed  it  has  become  apparent  that  Almighty  God  had  se- 
lected him  for  world-wide  honor  and  benignity. 

I  appropriate  to  him  the  language  of  our  own  fellow- 
citizen  and  historian,  Mr.  Motley,  which  he  applied  to  Wil- 
liam of  Orange :  — 

"  No  man  was  ever  more  devoted  to  a  high  purpose :  no 
man  had  ever  more  right  to  imagine  himself,  or  less  inclina- 
tion to  pronounce  himself,  intrusted  with  a  divine  mission. 


lOG  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

There  was  nothing  of  the  charlatan  in  his  character.  His 
nature  M'as  true  and  steadfast.  No  narrow-minded  usurper 
was  ever  more  loyal  to  his  own  aggrandizement  than  this 
large-hearted  man  to  the  cause  of  oppressed  humanity.  Yet 
it  was  inevitable  that  baser  minds  should  fail  to  recognize  his 
purity.  Tt  was  natural  for  grovelling  natures  to  search  in  the 
gross  soil  of  self-interest  for  the  sustaining  roots  of  the  tree  be- 
neath whose  branches  a  nation  found  its  shelter.  What  could 
they  comprehend  of  living  fountains  or  of  heavenly  dews  ?" 

But  his  untimely  hour  had  come.  You  remember  the 
fatal  evening  only  too  well  already,  and  I  do  not  desire  to 
disturb  your  sensibilities  by  anything  more  than  this  allu- 
sion to  it.  In  our  poetry  and  art  and  annals,  that  14th  of 
April  shall  hencefortli  be  known  and  remembered  as  the  noclie 
triste,  —  the  sorrowful  night.  The  just  and  good  magistrate 
then  went  away  out  of  our  sight. 

The  flag  on  spire,  pinnacle,  and  cottage  had  scarcely  been 
restored  from  its  depression  of  mourning,  nor  the  nmffled 
drum  had  ceased  to  beat,  when  the  rival  of  the  dead,  the  rep- 
resentative cause  of  our  sorrows,  was  overtaken  by  retribution. 
He  enjoys  this  evening  his  reflections  upon  history  and 
providence  and  judgment  in  the  hospitality  of  the  noblest 
fortress  of  the  Union,  on  a  bed  around  which  the  sliade  of 
the  murdered  President  would  fain  marshal  "  angels  and  niin- 
isters  of  grace  "  to  protect  him.  AVho  in  all  the  earth  cares 
now  what  shall  become  of  him  ?  But  whenever  or  wher- 
ever or  however  his  time  shall  terminate,  between  him  and 
the  vile  dust  to  which  he  shall  descend  there  is  only  the  brief 
hour  of  tlie  life  of  a  criminal,  to  be  succeeded  hy  tlie  re- 
proaches of  liis  contemporary  countrymen,  ISTortli  and  South, 
the  heavy-pressing  judgments  of  all  posterity  and  of  the 
eternal  God.  No  matter  when  or  where  or  how  Jefferson 
Davis  shall  die,  his  death  cannot  be  less  ignominious  than 
that  of  the  assassin  who  performed  his  purpose,  and  all 
generations  shall  welcome  him  to  the  immortality  of  the 
representative  Traitor  of  the  race ! 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  107 

But  another  guerdon  awaits  our  President.  He  sought  to 
save,  not  to  destroy.  He  labored  to  uphold  the  pillars  of  the 
Temple  whose  grace  and  beauty,  if  magistrates  prove  faithful, 
can  never  decay.  He  studied  policy  and  wisdom  day  and 
night  in  a  civil  war  which  cost  him  his  life,  that  his  country 
might  live,  and  fought  treason  on  every  line  and  in  every 
trench  over  half  tlie  States,  that  democratic  government  in 
America  might  shine  forth  to  cheer  and  animate  and  guide 
mankind  to  the  remotest  bounds  of  the  world  and  of  time. 

He  ransomed  four  millions  of  his  own  countrymen  from 
the  thraldom  of  two  hundred  years,  and  died  under  the  blow 
of  slavery  in  the  ecstasy  of  the  sight.  No  matter  when  or 
where  or  how  death  should  come  to  him,  —  for  Abraham 
Lincoln  has  completed  the  work  which  George  Washington 
began,  —  to  his  victories,  great  and  unapproachable,  he  has 
added  such  triumphs  as  war  never  contemplated  before,  to 
the  broad  field  of  his  civic  glory  he  has  imparted  a  still 
broader  radiance ;  and  he  now  goes  from  our  presence  into 
the  presence  of  other  ages,  garlanded  with  the  double  honor 
of  Eestorer  and  Liberator  ! 


A   COMMEMORATIVE   ADDRESS 

delivered  at  royalston,  mass.,  aug.  23,  18c5,  at  the  hundredth  anni- 
versary of  the  incorporation  of  the  town. 

Natives  and  Relatives  of  Royalston,  — 

Friends  and  Fellow-Citizens  : 

Under  this  spacious  awning,  on  this  church  lawn  and 
training-field  of  the  fathers,  we  have  assembled  to  commemo- 
rate the  birthday  of  our  native  town.  After  the  lapse  of  a 
century  from  its  first  chartered  existence,  when  the  men  who 
made  the  beginning  have  so  long  rested  from  their  labors 
that  the  same  mould  of  time  has  gathered  over  their  names 
and  over  their  dust,  and  their  heroic  courage  and  Christian 
endurance  have  been  partially  forgotten  for  the  want  of  an- 
nals, and  this  rolling  territory  has  passed  out  of  its  forest 
infancy  into  the  maturity  of  cultured  fields,  ample  dwellings, 
and  an  elevated  social  life,  we  meet,  not  so  mucli  for  tlie  re- 
cital of  a  scanty  history,  as  to  indulge  in  the  emotions  of  the 
anniversary,  and  to  bid  the  next  generation  hail !  And  yet, 
whatever  the  contrast  may  be  of  the  past  with  the  present, 
this  hour  witnesses  the  homage  of  a  people  plain  like  their 
ancestors,  among  whom  the  conventionalities  of  civilization 
have  introduced  but  little  of  artificial  rule,  or  thought,  or 
custom  of  life,  —  around  whom  the  hills  and  valleys  still  echo 
the  ancient  simplicity.  Our  home  and  birthplace  offers  no 
boast  of  tlie  early  or  later  days.  Our  town  has  only  moved 
without  eclat  in  the  paths  of  an  hundred  years  of  allegiance 
to  Christ  and  tlie  State,  —  has  without  pretence  to  fame 
responded  to  every  requisition  of  peace  and  war,  —  has  con- 


COMMEMORATIVE   ADDRESS    AT   ROYALSTON,    MASS.         109 

stantly  kept  its  step,  sometimes  feebly,  but  at  all  times 
according  to  its  ability,  in  the  marches  of  public  growth  and 
enterprise,  until  in  the  grand  results  of  this  day  it  appears  in 
the  sisterhood  of  the  municipalities,  asking  no  higher  renown 
than  to  be  credited  with  having  been  in  every  emergency 
honest,  truthful,  and  faithful.  The  just  man  can  rest  upon 
such  a  foundation ;  the  just  town  can  erect  its  centennial 
banner  upon  a  ground  so  simple  and  broad  as  that.  With 
such  claim  to  historical  justice  and  historical  participation 
this  ancient  municipality  now  calls  us  all  back  under  the 
shade  of  her  roof-tree ;  and  we  are  proudly  satisfied  to  cele- 
brate the  day. 

I  have  alluded  to  the  paucity  of  our  annals.  The  records 
of  the  town  are  considerably  meagre,  inexplicit,  and  unsatis- 
factory. Many  reasons  might  possibly  be  assigned  for  this ; 
but  that  which  seems  to  be  most  conclusive  is  also  most 
creditable  to  this  community.  The  town  and  the  church 
have  from  tlie  beginning  been  exempt  from  those  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  controversies  which  have  left  upon  the  records 
of  most  otlier  communities  of  New  England  full  and  volu- 
minous materials  for  history.  I  find  nothing  of  that  sort  in 
your  public  chest.  The  life  and  action  of  these  generations 
here  have  been  so  peaceful  and  so  regular  that  the  clerk  has 
had  little  to  enter  upon  his  book.  I  apprehend  that  scarcely 
an  ancient  town  of  the  State  can  present  a  parallel  with  this. 
Such  has  been  the  uniformity,  the  harmony,  the  serenity,  of 
this  smooth  current  of  population,  from  the  commencement 
until  now,  that  the  present  occasion  is  furnished  with  little 
that  is  eventful  and  with  nothing  that  is  dramatic.  A  town 
far  away  from  the  sea,  and  therefore  without  the  inspiring 
excitement  of  ocean  commerce,  —  a  precinct  that  bears  no 
vestiges  of  the  aborigines,  and  is  in  this  respect  so  unlike 
the  more  southerly  towns,  which  had  half  a  century  of  life 
crowded  with  Indian  traditions,  that  I  cannot  find  that  those 
original  lords  ever  lighted  a  pipe  or  a  fire  here, — a  church 
without  a  schism  in  a  century,  —  a  ministry  that  never  knew 


110  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

how  to  quarrel, — a  people  that  have  walked  the  paths  of 
unambitious  duty,  —  these  make  our  record  uninteresting  for 
the  public  address.  But  these  also  make  our  claim  to  the 
highest  distinction  of  municipal  fame.  This  equable  progi'ess 
of  four  generations,  without  anything  that  is  startling  in  savage 
or  civilized  adventure,  has  made  our  history  comparatively 
tame ;  but  it  is  the  tameness  of  beneficence,  of  a  people  who 
have  been  content  without  observation  to  pour  the  ceaseless 
tributaries  of  a  small  and  distant  town  into  the  swelling  vol- 
ume of  the  growth,  the  power,  and  the  renown  of  tlie  State. 

And  yet,  simple  and  unpretending  as  is  the  connection  of 
this  town  with  the  origin  and  development  of  the  whole  of 
America,  the  founders  of  these  local  habitations  were  allies 
and  partakers  in  the  great  scheme  of  the  settlement  of  a  new 
world.  In  accordance  with  the  law  of  colonization  their 
names  share  the  radiance  of  the  sun  from  the  east.  They 
moved  under  the  star  of  empire  to  glorious  co-operation  in 
the  possession  of  the  noblest  inheritance  of  the  race.  The 
municii^alities  of  Massachusetts  have  an  honor  altogether 
tlieir  own  as  a  part  of  the  instrumentalities  which  have 
borne  the  standard  of  Christian  republicanism  to  the  west- 
ern limits  of  the  continent.  Our  own  ancestors  had  a  share 
in  that  blessed  lineage,  and  in  that  dark  and  bloody  expe- 
rience of  a  century  and  a  half,  of  which  this  age  enjoys  the 
marvellous  fruition.  The  divine  beauty  of  the  present  has 
come  to  us  out  of  the  inappreciable  sufierings  of  the  past. 
The  angel  choirs  which  have  accompanied  the  divinity  of 
modern  liberty,  which  sang  amid  the  sighing  pines  around 
Geneva,  and  chanted  as  escort  to  a  representative  state  and  a 
representative  church  in  the  first  settlement  of  this  ancient 
colonv,  and  sweetened  those  first  vears  of  want  and  famine 
and  pestilential  terrors,  have  passed  over  these  fields  in  their 
coming.  All  the  days  of  the  Puritans,  all  the  scenes  of  their 
pilgrimage, —  Plymouth  out  of  Leyden,  Massachusetts  Bay 
out  of  Plvmouth,  all  the  towns  of  Worcester  North  out  of 
Mas.sachusetts  Bay,  —  from  the  landing  on  the  rock  to  the 


COMMEMORATIVE    ADDRESS    AT    ROYALSTON,    MASS.         Ill 

war  of  King  Philip,  thence  to  the  French  wars,  and  onward 
to  the  Revolution,  and  the  Constitution  and  all  the  glories 
under  it,  —  over  the  long  track,  everywhere,  it  is  a  unity,  a 
connection,  one  providence,  one  succession,  one  agency,  in 
which  they  who  lighted  their  camp  fires  in  the  face  of 
Indians  in  Lancaster  and  Brookfield  and  they  who  cleared 
fields  in  the  presence  of  wild  beasts  in  Tenipleton  and  Eoy- 
alston  were  pursuing  a  common  destiny  for  the  success  of  a 
republican  church  and  an  American  liberty.  And  so  we 
have  a  part  to-day  with  the  founders  of  the  New  England 
polity,  whose  mark  is  over  the  whole  continent.  There  was 
a  natural  order  in  the  settlement  of  these  towns.  English 
colonization  in  America  wisel}''  adopted  the  seaboard  as  its 
base  and  extended  its  operations  to  the  interior.  In  this 
order  of  the  possession  and  clearing  of  the  country  our  own 
town  came  late,  being  more  remote  than  any  other  in  the 
county  from  the  seminal  sources  of  the  State.  Some  of  the 
towns  in  the  southerly  part  of  the  county  were  occupied  by 
the  Anglo-American  an  hundred  years  earlier  than  this.  In- 
deed, of  the  entire  territory  of  Worcester  County,  as  the  same 
was  disposed  of  by  grants  and  charters,  our  own  town  is  the 
junior  of  all  by  many  years ;  for  although  our  neighbors, 
Templeton  and  Athol,  were  both  incorporated  on  the  same 
day,  only  about  three  years  before  us,  and  Winchendon  pre- 
ceded us  by  only  a  single  year  of  its  charter,  yet,  as  to  all 
those  towns,  grants  of  lands  and  settlements  had  been  made 
much  earlier,  varying  from  twenty  to  thirty  years.  The 
wave  of  occupation  seemed  to  pause  immediately  below  our 
border  for  some  years.  This  being  frontier  territory,  an 
outside  row  was  left  for  a  long  time  unplanted.  Nor  was 
this  fact  without  its  advantages ;  for  though  our  late  coming 
into  the  family  of  charters  has  cut  us  off  from  some  of  the 
excitements  of  early  traditions,  which  I  greatly  appreciate 
as  stimulations  to  public  character,  it  gave  to  the  early  set- 
tlers here  the  benefits  of  the  maturity  of  the  possessions 
surrounding   them.     So   that   while   the   first   occupants   of 


o 


112  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

Atliol  were  obliged  to  maintain  a  garrison  against  the  In- 
dians who  had  kept  a  seat  there  to  a  late  day,  the  triumph  and 
success  which  followed  were  appropriated  to  the  security  of 
the  first  comers  in  Royal-shire.  But  the  special  advantage 
of  coming  after  our  sisters  of  the  county  is  better  illustrated 
by  the  fact  that  the  novitiate  of  colonization,  the  interim  be- 
tween settlement  and  municipality,  was  thus  made  so  brief 
that  between  the  first  planting  and  the  first  fruit  there  was 
scarcely  an  appreciable  space  of  time ;  for  while  it  occurred 
in  other  parts  of  this  county  that  thirty  and  forty  years 
elapsed  after  settlement  before  municipal  incorporation,  that 
intervening  period  was  represented  here  by  only  the  interval 
of  three  years.  These  lands  were  scarcely  known  as  a  value 
to  the  first  shrewd  proprietors  at  Boston  before  the  town 
itself  took  a  place  in  the  provincial  records  as  a  living 
community,  a  political  power,  a  participator  in  the  fortunes 
of  the  Commonwealth.  Thus  there  was  no  infancy  here  ;  it 
was  robust  manhood  from  the  start. 

The  territory  of  this  town  has  undergone  many  changes, 
and  indeed  was  a  subject  of  some  uncertainty  at  the  outset. 
June  4,  1752,  a  vote  was  approved  in  Council  ordering  a  sale 
of  the  lauds  north  of  Pequoig,  now  Athol,  and  onward  to  the 
province  line.  The  purpose  was  to  clear  the  map;  and  so 
effectually  was  this  accomplished,  tliat  the  surveyor's  chain 
swept  in  a  strip  of  several  miles  in  length  lying  along  the 
whole  northern  boundary  of  Winchendon,  separating  it  from 
the  province  line,  which  had  been  inadvertently  omitted  in 
the  survey  of  that  town,  and  this  was  afterwards  called  the 
"  Eoyalston  Leg."  For  obvious  reasons  the  limb  proved  an 
encumbrance,  and  was  severed  in  1780,  when  these  many 
acres,  which  had  come  to  us  like  an  estray,  were  transferred 
to  Winchendon.  Under  the  sovereignty  of  our  king  the 
township  was  sold  at  public  vendue.  This  form  of  procedure, 
under  which  the  country  itself  had  been  ceded  by  cliarters 
and  was  afterwards  parcelled  out,  was  a  part  of  that  policy 
which,  following  up  tlie  law  of  discovery  and  conquest  by 


COMMEMORATIVE    ADDRESS   AT    ROYALSTON,    MASS.         113 

internal  settlement  and  improvement,  has  made  England  the 
great  power  of  the  earth,  under  which  she  even  now  plants 
her  authority  and  extends  her  civilization  alike  in  India  and 
in  North  America.  The  purchasers  and  first  proprietors  of 
our  town  were  men  of  exalted  names  and  characters.  And 
although  they  were  proprietors  only,  not  settlers,  yet  I  cannot 
doubt  that  association  with  so  much  of  fame  and  virtue  left 
impressions  of  manliness  and  honor  upon  those  who  came  and 
remained  here.  Samuel  Watts,  Thomas  Hubbard,  Isaac  Iloyal, 
James  Otis,  Isaac  Freeman,  and  others,  for  the  consideration 
of  £1,348,  took  the  title  to  28,357  acres,  exclusive  of  former 
private  grants.  These  grants,  amounting  to  1,700  acres,  are 
known  in  the  archives  at  the  State  House  as  Pierpont's, 
Priest's,  and  Hapgood's.  In  accordance  with  the  wise  policy 
of  the  government  of  that  day,  —  a  policy  which  has  been 
continued  by  the  General  Government  since  our  independence 
in  every  time  of  war,  and  at  no  time  so  liberally  as  in  our 
recent  conflict  with  the  Rebellion,  —  the  sovereign  power  had 
bestowed  these  grants  as  bounties  for  military  services  ren- 
dered. I  call  them  military  services,  for  such  they  were, 
whether  rendered  in  the  field  or  at  home  in  support  of  the 
field.  The  name  attached  to  one  of  these  grants  has  become 
a  part  of  the  local  geography  and  daily  life  of  the  town.  The 
name  of  Priest,  who  received  300  acres  as  a  recognition  of  his 
loyalty  in  extending  the  hospitality  of  his  half-way  house, 
near  the  easterly  line  of  the  town,  to  all  those  who  passed 
that  way  to  and  from  the  French  wars,  will  endure  while  the 
beautiful  river  which  bears  his  name  shall  continue  to  flow. 
And  so  lono-  as  the  calm  How  of  its  waters  shall  continue,  so 
long  shall  live  the  memories  of  that  service  which  associates 
your  town  with  the  pioneers  and  the  rangers,  with  the  Lily  of 
France,  with  Louisburg,  with  that  fidelity  to  the  crown  of  our 
king  in  those  days  which  I  cannot  but  like,  with  those  wars 
for  our  royal  Georges  which  prepared  and  educated  our  fatliers 
afterward  to  overwhelm  all  kings  in  the  Revolution.  I  have 
lived  in  this  town  long  enough  to  have  learned  that  in  the 

8 


114  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK, 

trade  of  land  we  can  calculate  as  closely  as  other  men ;  and 
let  me  remind  you  that  we  inherit  the  talent  from  an  honor- 
able ancestry.  I  find  in  the  Massachusetts  Archives,  Vol. 
XLVI.,  that  the  same  Watts,  Eoyal,  and  Otis  at  length  discov- 
ered that,  as  far  hack  as  1737,  the  Court  had  made  a  private 
grant  of  600  acres  to  Benoui  Moore  and  others,  afterwards 
assigned  to  one  Hunt,  and  thenceforward  known  under  his 
name,  and  that  the  location  had  been  taken  by  him  in  the 
very  heart  of  tlie  best  land,  200  acres  of  which,  however,  had 
somehow  been  relinquished ;  whereupon  they  claimed  other 
acres  as  good  somewhere  else  in  the  province,  or  an  equivalent 
relief.  Certainly  this  seemed  a  very  plausible  land  claim, 
and  the  allowance  was  voted.  Subsequently  it  appears,  by 
the  report  of  a  committee,  that  after  the  allowance  of  the 
claim,  a  correct  survey  disclosed  that  these  proprietors  had 
originally  taken  500  acres  more  than  their  deed  expressed, 
and  more  than  they  paid  for,  leaving  them  quite  largely  in 
debt  to  the  province,  which  I  cannot  see  that  they  ever  made 
good,  though  probably  the  advantage  does  not  inure  to  any 
present  landholder  of  Royalston. 

And  so  your  town  began  under  a  tenitorial  j^roprietorship 
of  30,577  acres,  the  private  grants  included.  In  1780  the 
unmanageable  Leg,  estimated  at  about  2,000  acres,  was  set  off 
to  Wincheudon.  In  1783  several  thousand  acres  were  ap- 
propriated to  Orange  when  that  town  was  incorporated.  In 
1799,  300  or  400  acres  were  added  from  Athol  and  Gerry 
(now  Phillipston).  In  1803  several  hundred  acres  were  added 
from  Athol.  In  1837  not  far  from  200  acres  were  taken  out 
of  Phillipston  and  annexed  to  your  jurisdiction. 

The  title  and  charter  muniments,  therefore,  now  assign  to 
this  municipality  not  far  from  2G,000  acres.  It  has  the  disad- 
vantage of  remoteness  from  the  sea  and  of  a  northern  frontier 
contiguity,  which  is  considerable ;  but  it  enjoys  tlie  compen- 
sations of  a  soil  submissive  to  cultivation,  rigorous  to  the 
sight,  but  yielding  generously  to  the  stroke  of  the  earnest 
arm, — of  benignant  drifts  and  ranges,  of  the  affluent  waterfalls 


COMMEMOKATIVE   ADDRESS   AT   ROYALSTON,   MASS.         115 

of  Miller's  and  Priest's  rivers,  and  of  the  simpler  Lawrence 
and  Tully,  which  give  richness  because  they  give  plenty,  —  of 
rural  beauty,  worthy  of  historic  record,  at  the  royal  falls  of 
Forbes  and  of  Doane,  —  of  the  sparkling  mineral  gems  which 
the  official  geologist  of  Massachusetts  once  told  me  he  had 
gladly  set  in  his  family  seal,  —  of  an  atmosphere  that  inspires 
youth  and  enlivens  age,  —  of  territorial  possessions,  simple 
indeed,  but  glistening  with  the  authority  of  the  names  of  tlie 
fathers  of  American  Independence,  —  of  a  planting  in  the 
mountain  air,  —  of  a  history  studded  with  patriotic  associa- 
tions,—  of  a  religious  connection  that  shall  bear  your  children 
to  the  heights  of  a  happy  remembrance  of  the  names  of  their 
fathers,  —  of  a  place  on  the  sweet,  broad  plain  of  this  civili- 
zation of  Worcester  North,  stars  encircling  overhead,  and  a 
simple  robustness  of  character  sustaining  the  people. 

And  so  you  will  adhere  to  the  territorial  vestments  dropped 
upon  you  and  around  you  by  your  ancestors,  clinging  to  your 
acres  and  yielding  them  not  to  other  calls.  Your  town  is 
symmetrical  and  compact,  —  large  enough  and  small  enough, 
—  and  bears  a  just  proportion  to  the  prescriptive  idea  of 
a  Massachusetts  township  of  six  miles  square.  I  would 
not  diminish  it  nor  enlarge  it.  Let  other  municipalities 
nibble  around  your  borders,  but  let  them  nibble  in  vain,  and 
you  will  hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good  and  which  is  none 
too  much. 

And  now,  if  we  revert  to  the  proceedings  of  these  purchasers 
of  our  soil,  we  discover  from  their  journals  that  they  held 
proprietors'  meetings  from  1753,  over  a  period  of  thirty-four 
years,  until  1787,  when  their  records  were  closed  and  sealed. 
To  James  Otis,  Isaac  Eoyal,  and  their  original  associates, 
John  Hancock  w^as  added  as  an  owner  in  1765.  No  town 
can  assert  a  better  beginning  or  a  more  reputable  heritage  of 
name  and  blood.  The  proprietors  held  their  meetings  in 
Boston,  "  at  the  Bunch  of  Grapes  Tavern."  At  the  first 
meetino-  it  was  "  motioned  that  the  land  aforesaid  be  called 
Eoyal-shire,  and  they  unanimously  agreed  thereto,  whereupon 


IIG  '      ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

the  Hon.  Isaac  Eoyal  generously  gave  his  word  to  give  the 
partners  £25  sterling  towards  building  a  meeting-house  for 
said  town."     Here  we  first  find  our  name. 

The  Hon.  Isaac  Eoyal  was  a  citizen  of  Medford,  a  gentle- 
man of  great  spirit  for  public  enterprise,  devoted  in  admiration 
for  his  king,  and  generous  and  munificent  for  his  time.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  General  Court  and  of  the  Council  for 
twenty-two  years.  The  pulpit  Bible  which  was  used  in  this 
First  Congregational  Society  for  seventy-five  years  was  a  gift 
from  him.  He  also  gave  2,000  acres,  a  large  part  of  which 
was  in  this  town,  to  found  the  professorship  of  law  in  Harvard 
University,  wliich  still  bears  his  name.  He  promised  to  give 
a  full  lot  of  land  in  this  township  to  the  first  male  child  that 
should  be  born  here ;  but,  several  girls  taking  the  precedence 
of  birth,  Royal  Chase,  named  after  him,  came  too  late  on  the 
stage,  and  died  too  early  to  make  the  proffer  availing.  For 
in  the  mean  time  the  elements  of  the  Revolution  gathered 
and  broke,  and  our  benefactor  and  friend,  Isaac  Royal,  who 
could  not  give  up  his  king,  passed  over  to  the  Tories,  sailed 
for  England  in  1776,  and  never  returned.  It  is  related  in  the 
history  of  the  refugees  that  after  his  departure  even  his  beau- 
tiful estate  at  Medford  refused  cultivation,  that  the  scythe 
refused  to  cut  Tory  grass,  and  the  oxen  to  plough  Tory  soil. 
The  tone  of  his  letters  from  England,  in  1779,  written  before 
independence  was  by  any  means  assured,  indicated  his  yearn- 
ing desire  to  return  to  Massachusetts,  and  to  make  his  last 
bed  by  the  side  of  his  relatives  and  friends.  But  the  desire 
came  too  late;  for,  by  the  sweeping  act  of  October  16,  1778, 
passed  by  the  House  of  Representatives  and  approved  in 
Council,  he  whose  name  we  bear  received  the  indelible  char- 
acter of  an  exile  and  an  outlaw.  But  let  not  that  which  was 
a  political  necessity  of  the  time  perpetuate  his  reproach  ;  and 
this,  I  perceive,  was  the  judgment  of  our  fathers.  No  town 
was  more  patriotic  than  this  in  the  Revolution ;  but  I  rejoice 
that  its  citizens  appear  never  for  one  moment  to  have  thought 
of  giving  up  their  corporate  name  because  their  benefactor 


COMMEMORATIVE   ADDRESS   AT    ROYALSTON,   MASS.         117 

had  estranged  himself  from  their  political  opinions.  The 
name  of  this  town  and  the  title  of  the  Cambridge  law  profes- 
sorship may  honorably  be  retained  in  his  remembrance. 

The  first  possession  of  this  soil  by  our  ancestors  dates  from 
1752,  but  the  French  war  of  1756  —  the  most  dramatic  and 
enorossino-  contest  on  this  continent  prior  to  that  of  the  Eevo- 
lution  —  threw  all  the  arts  and  labors  of  peaceful  enterprise 
into  suspense  and  abeyance  for  several  years.  You  will  ap- 
preciate how  and  why  the  clearing  and  culture  of  the  glebe 
was  suspended  here  to  make  way  for  the  practice  of  the  bayo- 
net, if  you  recall  that  the  whole  population  of  the  province 
was  drawn  into  the  vortex  of  that  war.  Not  in  the  Revolu- 
tion, not  in  the  late  Eebellion,  of  which  the  pressure  is  still 
heavy  on  your  hearts,  were  the  young  men,  who  settle  the 
land,  so  disproportionately  called  into  the  field  of  arms.  In 
that  conflict  of  seven  years  we  are  informed  that  Massachusetts 
alone  sent  to  the  field  thirty-five  thousand  of  her  sons,  and 
seven  thousand  for  each  of  three  successive  years.  Every 
nook  and  corner  of  this  province  was  exhausted  by  the  uni- 
versal call. 

As  the  war  approached  its  end  the  permanent  settlement 
of  these  lands  began.  In  sympathy  with  the  policy  of  the 
fathers  of  New  England,  the  proprietors  of  Eoyal-shire  laid 
our  foundations  in  moral  and  mental  education.  At  their 
first  meeting  in  1753  they  had  directed  the  land  to  be  laid 
off  into  sixty  lots  for  settlers,  and  three  others  for  a  minister, 
for  the  support  of  worship,  and  for  a  school.  Their  com- 
mittee came  here  and  personally  superintended  this  work, 
and  selected  the  wild  spot  so  familiar  to  us  on  the  Lawrence 
stream  for  the  mills.  The  church  and  the  school,  the  saw-mill 
and  the  grist-mill,  were  the  early  handmaids  of  our  civiliza- 
tion. They  are  so  to  this  day  in  the  West,  beyond  the  Mis- 
sissippi, where  our  example  is  repeated. 

In  1761,  the  war  having  spent  its  fury,  deeds  had  been 
granted  to  twenty-one  settlers.  In  the  next  year  these  ten 
acres  near  which  you  have  pitched  your  pavilion  were  sol- 


118  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   IT.    BULLOCK. 

emnly  consecrated  for  the  meeting-house,  the  training-field, 
and  the  nurial-ground,  tlie  last  of  which  was  subsequently  by- 
exchange  removed  a  little  farther  to  the  south,  out  of  what  is 
now  this  comely  village ;  and  a  contract  was  made  for  the 
mills. 

In  the  following  year,  1763,  a  meeting-house  was  con- 
tracted for  at  £200,  which  was  completed  in  1764.  Still 
another  year  witnessed  the  prompt  execution  of  the  wise 
policy  of  the  founders,  in  setting  apart  231  acres  for  the 
first  minister,  424  acres  for  the  ministry,  and  420  acres 
for  the  school.  To  procure  sixty  settlers  the  proprietors 
offered  to  each  man  100  acres,  with  the  condition  of  set- 
tling a  clergyman,  clearing  six  acres,  and  building  every 
one  a  house.  No  higher  wisdom  than  this  ever  initiated 
a  town  or  a  State.  And  then  the  remaining  lots  were 
divided  among  the  proprietors  by  drawing;  and  that  was 
the  profit  which  they  deserved. 

In  this  year,  1765,  February  16,  the  act  of  incorporation 
of  the  town,  under  the  name  of  Royalston,  was  approved  in 
Council.  No  copy  of  the  act  appears  among  your  files.  Ac- 
cordingly, I  have  availed  myself  of  the  kindness  of  the  pres- 
ent obliging  Secretary  of  State,  the  Hon.  Oliver  Warner,  and 
have  procured  a  literal  transcript  of  the  charter,  handsomely 
engrossed  upon  parchment  and  bearing  his  attestation,  which 
the  town  clerk  will  please  faithfully  preserve.  It  is  the  titu- 
lar charter  of  the  last  and  youngest  of  all  the  towns  of  this 
ancient  and  noble  county  in  the  days  of  the  province  and  of 
the  royal  arms. 

It  is  worthy  of  preservation,  for  under  it  j^our  fathers  have 
kept  the  public  name  nntarnished,  and  you  will  see  to  it  that 
no  blemish  shall  alight  upon  the  life  of  the  present  gen- 
eration. 

The  active  settlement  of  this  town  began  in  1762,  when 
six  families  moved  in,  some  of  Avhose  blood  still  circulates 
among  your  residents.  I  tliink  we  may  estimate  higldy  the 
soundness  of  the  stock  of  these  sturdy  pioneers,  since  it  ap- 


COMMEMORATIVE    ADDRESS   AT   ROYALSTON,   MASS.         119 

pears  that  the  average  age  of  these  six  heads  at  their  death 
was  not  less  than  seventy-six  years.  So  rapid  was  the  influx 
of  new-comers,  that  very  soon  after  the  French  war  had 
closed  as  many  as  seventy-five  heads  of  families  had  become 
established  liere,  many  of  whose  names  help  to  fill  your  vot- 
ing-list in  the  present  day.  Time  will  not  allow  me  to  make 
use  of  the  long  list  which  is  in  my  hands  as  I  should  like. 
Theirs  was  a  wilderness  life  under  a  degree  of  hardship,  of 
toil  and  deprivation,  which  only  strong  arms  and  hearts  val- 
iant in  Christian  faith  could  have  sustained. 

No  imagination  of  this  day,  no  preserved  traditions  of  the 
past,  can  do  justice  to  those  early  labors.  Many  of  these  men 
who  came  hither  from  Sutton,  as  was  illustrated  in  the  in- 
stance of  Captain  Sibley,  would  clear  a  piece  of  woodland 
here,  go  back  to  look  after  haymaking  in  Sutton,  and  return 
in  time  to  sow  a  rye-field  in  Royalston.  Prior  to  the  erection 
of  the  first  mill  by  Isaac  Gale,  bags  of  grain  were  carried  on 
the  shoulders  of  men  to  a  neighboring  town  to  be  ground  and 
brought  back  in  the  same  manner.  No  wonder  that  they, 
who  thus  opened  the  pathway  in  this  town  with  humble 
means  and  patient  labor,  were  the  same  that  confronted 
boldly  James  Otis  and  John  Hancock,  a  committee  of  the 
proprietors,  and  insisted  before  the  Legislature  upon  the 
justice  and  equity  of  taxing  the  lands  of  non-residents  for 
the  support  of  the  Gospel ;  and  no  wonder  that  they  suc- 
ceeded against  even  those  overshadowing  names.  I  desire 
not  to  appear  invidious  in  selecting  out  of  so  many  who  were 
prominent  in  their  day. 

The  three  selectmen  chosen  at  the  first  town-meeting, 
May  7,  1765,  —  John  Fry,  Timothy  Eichardson,  and  Benjamin 
Woodbury,  —  bore  names  which  have  descended  in  other  rep- 
resentatives of  their  blood  through  the  records  of  a  century, 
and  which  still  live  in  honor  and  respect  among  you.  The 
limitations  of  my  address  will  only  permit  an  allusion  to  the 
first  of  these. 

John  Fry,  a  lineal  descendant  in  the  fifth  generation  of 


120  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER    H.    BULLOCK. 

one  who  came  from  England  and  settled  in  this  country, 
moved  from  Sutton  to  lloyalston  and  resided  on  yonder  emi- 
nence. He  was  called  here  the  Esquire,  but  he  brought  with 
liira  a  distinction  of  arms.  I  have  had  placed  at  my  use  by 
one  of  his  kinsmen  the  original  commission  under  the  king 
which  he  received  as  First  Lieutenant  from  Governor  Shirley 
in  1745,  and  under  which  he  fought  before  Louisburg  and 
entered  the  fort  to  the  music  of  the  same  drums  which  thirty 
years  later  beat  still  better  sounds  at  Bunker  Hill.  Ten  years 
afterwards  he  bore  royal  commission  as  Captain  for  service 
at  Crown  Point.  He  was  past  the  time  for  military  activity 
when  the  Eevolution  opened,  and  was  obliged  to  suppress 
his  soldierly  instincts  in  the  home  life  of  a  good  deacon  and 
model  citizen.  He  lived  here  nearly  fifty  years,  and  died  at 
ninetv-six. 

As  I  look  over  the  memoranda  concerning  those  men  of 
the  last  century  which  have  been  gathered  from  traditions  and 
placed  in  my  hands,  my  admiration  is  excited  for  tlieir  en- 
durance and  their  whole  character.  It  was  the  best  of  stock 
with  which  to  build  up  a  town.  I  have  also  been  impressed 
by  the  uniform  fact  of  their  remarkable  longevity,  which 
attests  the  purity  and  contentment  of  their  lives.  For  small 
gains,  but  many  large  and  virtuous  rewards,  tliey  struggled 
manfully  in  the  infancy  of  American  civilization ;  they 
drove  out  wild  beasts  and  subdued  the  wilderness ;  they 
opened  the  paths  to  a  better  condition  for  those  who  came 
after  them,  to  more  comfortable  homes  and  a  larger  affluence ; 
worn  out  at  last  they  lay  down  to  their  rest  in  the  track 
their  own  hands  had  made,  and  they  left  to  the  present  gen- 
eration a  heritage  of  works  in  which  all  ages  mny  discern 
the  beauty  and  the  strength  of  religion,  subordination,  and 
patriotism. 

Aided  by  the  mimificence  of  Colonel  Royal  the  proprietors 
erected  the  first  meeting-house  in  1704  near  the  centre  of 
this  public  ground.  It  was  left  in  a  rude  state  of  unfinished 
interior  and  without  pews.     Upon  one  side  of  the  broad  aisle 


COMMEMORATIVE   ADDRESS   AT   ROYALSTON,   MASS.         121 

were  seated  the  males  and  upon  the  other  the  females,  as 
was  then  usual  in  country  houses  of  worship,  which  custom 
appears  to  have  continued  during  a  period  of  nearly  forty 
years.  There  being  no  distinctive  seats  assigned  to  the  sing- 
ers, the  tuning-fork  and  deaconing  off  by  lines  came  to  the 
rescue  of  church  harmony.  Thirty-three  years  after,  in  1797, 
the  old  house  was  removed,  and  another  more  commodious 
took  its  place.  This  remained  with  some  alterations  till  it 
was  destroyed  by  fire  in  1851,  when  the  present  appropriate  ed- 
ifice was  reared.  These  changes  have  been  very  marked,  and 
the  contrast  is  striking.  I  can  conceive  that  if  John  Fry,  Tim- 
othy Eichardson,  and  Benjamin  Woodbury  were  to  come  back 
in  the  flesh  and  be  ushered,  along  the  present  aisles  and  by 
darkened  windows,  to  carpeted  slips  and  cushioned  seats,  and 
this  new  organ  of  yours  were  to  practise  upon  their  ears  the 
imitation  of  a  few  of  its  flutes  and  its  fiddles,  and  should  wind 
up  witli  a  swell  or  two  of  the  grand  diapason,  they  would  call 
upon  their  leader  of  1765  to  draw  the  sword  which  he  flashed 
at  Crown  Point,  and  to  di'ive  out  of  the  house  a  congregation 
of  worshippers  who  could  tolerate  such  innovations.  But  we 
must  remember  that  each  age  has  its  standard,  and  that  in 
nothing  else  do  men  become  so  sacredly  attached  to  their 
custom  as  in  matters  relating  to  Christian  worship. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  first  condition  imposed  by  the  pro- 
prietors upon  the  landholders,  —  that  they  should  support  a 
minister.  During  the  first  three  years  of  incorporation  the 
temporary  services  of  several  clergymen  were  secured,  but  it 
is  not  important  to  recite  tlieir  names.  At  length,  in  April, 
1768,  the  town  extended  a  call  to  the  Rev.  Joseph  Lee  to 
settle.  You  will  bear  in  mind  that  this  was  then  what  has 
been  since  termed  by  the  courts  a  poll-parish,  the  town  and 
the  religious  society  blending  under  the  law.  He  was  offered 
for  settlement  £400  "old  tenor,"  in  addition  to  the  231  acres 
granted  by  the  proprietors  for  the  first  settled  minister,  and 
in  lawful  money  a  salary  of  £46  13s.  Ad.  per  annum  for  the 
first  three  years ;   £53  6s.  8d.  per  annum  for  the  next  three 


122  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

years ;  and  £G0  each  year  thereafter,  and  thirty  cords  of  wood 
to  be  drawn  annually  from  his  own  land  to  his  door. 

The  church  of  sixteen  persons  had  been  formally  organized 
two  years  before.  The  call  was  accepted,  and  the  pastoral 
office  was  filled  by  ordination,  October  19,  1768.  His  life, 
his  services,  his  eulogy,  are  in  the  dim  letters  upon  that 
familiar  tablet-stone  in  the  neglected  graveyard,  which  time 
will  soon  render  illegible,  unless  you  shall  chisel  them  or 
color  them  anew. 

And  now  I  cannot  refrain  from  felicitating  the  inhabitants 
of  Eoyalston  over  a  fact  which  becomes  at  this  point  pertinent 
and  impressive.  As  to  all  the  central  portion  of  the  town, 
and  by  far  the  larger  part  of  its  whole  population,  after  the 
expiration  of  one  hundred  years,  you  start  on  this  second 
century  with  only  the  fourth  clergyman  and  the  fourth  physi- 
cian since  the  origin.  This  is  indeed  a  striking  circumstance, 
and  it  has  had  much  to  do  in  forming  and  sustaining  the 
character  of  the  people.  Everything  stable,  tried,  approved, 
and  held  fast,  —  nothing  fitful,  violent,  or  rushing,  —  has  en- 
tered into  the  public  policy  or  general  life  or  private  action 
of  this  municipality  among  the  hills  of  the  frontier.  From 
father  to  son,  without  tlie  intermittent  fevers  which  have 
racked  many  other  communities,  familiarity  with  the  same 
faces,  with  the  same  principles,  with  the  same  professional  and 
dominating  influences,  has  descended  through  the  years  of  a 
century,  and  made  the  very  name  of  lioyalston  a  synonym  for 
stability,  tranquillity,  and  contentment.  This  is  an  inheritance 
to  you  worth  your  continued  care  to  preserve. 

The  patriotic  history  of  the  town  is  in  proportion  with  all 
its  other  features.  Those  early  settlements  were  made  amid 
the  rumblings  of  the  approaching  Eevolution,  and  your  first 
proprietors  were  among  its  chief  actors.  They  divided,  and 
Chandler  and  lloyal  went  off  to  the  loyalists.  They  were 
better  known  to  our  forefathers  than  were  Otis  and  Hancock 
at  that  day,  for  Eoyal  they  cherished  as  their  benefactor,  and 


COMMEMORATIVE   ADDRESS   AT   ROYALSTON,    MASS.         123 

Chandler  had  been  active  and  fair  in  laying  out  their  primeval 
lands.  But  they  subordinated  personal  gratitude  to  public 
patriotism. 

I  do  not  know  that  there  was  a  single  Tory  among  them 
all.  Not  even  their  poverty  opened  a  door  to  the  seductive 
blandishments  of  crowns  and  thrones.  They  had  those  among 
them  who  had  borne  the  commission  of  their  kinsf,  and  who 
had  fought  for  his  diadem  on  the  line  of  the  ocean  and  the 
lake  ;  but  they  cast  all  these  pleasant  memories  behind  them, 
waited  not  to  know  which  side  should  win,  and  threw  them- 
selves, their  town,  their  all,  into  the  breach  with  the  struggling 
colonists  for  independence. 

Through  the  town  records  of  the  Eevolutionary  period  I 
find,  loosely  scattered  and  poorly  preserved,  sufficient  proof 
of  the  exalted  patriotism  of  those  good  men.  It  cannot  be 
necessary  that  their  votes  and  acts  should  be  here  set  forth  in 
detail. 

During  all  this  time  the  first  settlers  were  continually  going 
themselves  into  the  service,  —  the  last  two  men  marching  off 
in  1782.  There  was  no  call  from  Philadelphia  to  which  they 
did  not  respond,  nor  a  drum-beat  heard  from  Bunker  Hill  or 
Saratoga  or  Bennington  with  whicli  their  hearts  did  not  keep 
music.  When  Burgoyne  in  the  North  spread  abroad  such 
terror,  the  men  of  this  town  and  of  all  Northern  Worcester 
rose  to  arms  and  marched  forth  for  the  encounter.  All  this 
occurred  when  more  than  half  these  acres  were  covered  with 
the  original  forests,  when  the  settlements  were  in  their  in- 
fancy, when  the  currency  was  perplexing  all  the  relations  of 
life,  and  when  lioyalston  had  only  between  six  hundred  and 
seven  hundred  inhabitants.  Other  and  older  and  richer 
towns  did  more,  but  I  humbly  submit  that  none  did  better 
than  this. 

It  is  a  source  of  increasing  regret  that  the  records  of  the 
town  in  its  primitive  period  have  only  partially  preserved  the 
names  of  the  Eevolutionary  soldiers.     From  the  books,  ini- 


124  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

perfectly  kept  as  tliey  were,  I  derive  the  names  of  Xahum 
Green,  Samuel  Earton,  Esquire  Davis,  John  Whittemore, 
Nathaniel  Jacobs,  Timothy  Armstrong,  Michael  French,  lioger 
Chase,  Moses  Walker,  Joel  Stockwell,  Eliphalet  Eichardson, 
B.  Woodbury,  Eleazer  Burbank,  Bezaleel  Barton,  Isaac  Nichols, 
and  Silas  Cutting.  Others  there  were,  many  and  as  good,  but 
their  names  liave  not  been  saved.  The  last  named  of  these 
was  one  of  the  first  six  settlars  of  the  town  in  17G2,  and  died 
in  the  military  service  of  the  M^ar.  But  the  remainder  of 
them  had  come  here  a  little  later  than  1762,  in  the  shoal  or 
drift  of  settlers  who  floated  in  this  direction  so  rapidly  from 
the  southern  towns.  One  of  them,  Nahum  Green,  was  the 
delegate  to  the  second  Provincial  Congress  of  JMassachusetts 
in  February,  1775.  He  appears  to  have  gone  from  that 
Congress  into  the  first  army  gathered  for  independence  at 
Charlestown,  and  was  probably  engaged  in  the  battle  of 
Bunker  Hill ;  he  returned  here  in  July  and  died  of  the  small- 
pox, which  he  had  contracted  while  in  the  service.  This  first 
martyr  which  Eoyalston  contributed  to  the  Revolution  was 
privately  buried  near  his  own  home,  about  a  mile  southerly 
of  this  spot,  and  the  soldier's  resting-place  can  now  barely  be 
identified  by  the  remaining  cobbles  that  make  his  headstone. 
Cannot  this  town  afford,  by  some  simple,  appropriate,  and 
enduring  memorial,  to  rescue  from  oblivion  the  gory  bed  of 
the  aboriginal  patriot  whose  name  yet  survives  without  a 
tablet  the  scene  of  the  first  mortal  sacrifice  offered  in  lier  be- 
half to  the  immortality  of  the  American  Union  ?  Pardon  me 
for  asking  you  to  think  of  this,  and  to  act  either  by  private 
subscription  or  in  open  town-meeting.  Another  of  them, 
Nathaniel  Jacobs,  as  it  appears,  unintentionally,  in  the  quaint 
language  of  the  papers  in  your  chest,  "  did  a  tower  of  duty  in 
lihode  Island."  All  of  these,  and  many  otliers  whose  names 
are  lost  to  our  sight,  struggled  throughout  the  conflict,  and 
some  died  in  the  battles,  that  they  might  write  the  honor  of 
their  young  municipality  upon  the  shining  bosses  of  the  Re- 
public of  the  world  in  the  West.     And  I  am  proud  to  be  able 


COMMEMORATIVE   ADDRESS   AT   ROY  ALSTON,   MASS.         125 

to  stand  before  you  and  to  say  that  of  all  who  enlisted  into 
that  service  from  this  town,  not  one  —  not  one  was  ever 
recorded  as  a  deserter.  We  meet  to-day  upon  their  ancient 
training-ground  to  render  ascriptive  gratitude  for  the  honor 
of  their  robust  virtues,  for  the  example  of  their  marvellous 
sacrifices,  for  the  fame  of  their  glorious  death.  Let  us  in  our 
day  cherish  the  memories  of  our  ancestors  in  that  war,  and 
transmit  every  syllable  of  their  names  encircled  with  reverence 
to  the  last  posterity. 

Our  patriotic  journal  is  as  continuous  as  it  is  creditable.  In 
the  war  with  Great  Britain  in  1812-15,  our  fathers  were  alike 
Federal  in  politics  and  steadfast  in  their  patriotism.  They 
believed  throughout  in  the  policy  of  Hamilton  and  Ames  and 
Strong,  but  they  never  stood  away  from  the  national  colors. 
Accordingly  they  sent  a  fine,  large  company  of  grenadiers  for 
coast  defence  to  Boston  under  circumstances  of  departure 
which  made  the  scene  to  be  remembered  as  pathetic  and 
impressive.  Those  men  all  returned  without  a  casualty,  and 
nearly  one  half  of  their  number  live  to-day  to  celebrate  tlieir 
Federal  and  bloodless  campaign.  Other  citizens  of  the  town, 
however,  went  out  into  the  active  service  and  mingled  in  the 
engagements  of  that  war  on  distant  fields. 

In  the  late  war  of  the  Eebellion  the  conduct  of  this 
town  has  been  such  as  I  am  proud  to  record.  Her  people 
stood  early  and  constant  by  the  Government,  and  by  the  prin- 
ciple of  universal  liberty.  In  the  defence  of  them  they  have 
strained  every  energy  under  circumstances  of  embarrassment 
not  shared  by  many  other  sections  of  the  State.  Tlie  opening 
conflict  found  the  place  considerably  exhausted  of  its  young 
men,  whom  more  exciting  fields  of  enterprise  had  drawn 
away  from  their  hillsides,  and  the  second  year  of  the  strug- 
gle greatly  increased  that  exhaustion.  But  still  upward  and 
onward  to  the  last  victories  our  people  answered  to  the  calls 
of  the  country,  filled  their  quotas,  and  never  fell  below  the 
example  of  their  Eevolutionary  sires.     Several  of  the  native- 


126  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK, 

born  sons  of  Royalston  have  been  promoted  as  general  officers 
to  high  commands  in  the  national  army.  When  I  consider 
that  the  population  lias  been  declining  within  the  last  decade, 
and  that  this  decline  represents  chiefly  the  departure  of  those 
who  are  within  the  age  of  military  requisition,  I  confess  my 
surprise  and  admiration  over  the  role  of  those  who  have  borne 
the  name  of  our  birthplace  on  the  many  fields  of  this  war. 
The  great  cost  to  the  manhood  of  the  Union  in  defence  of  its 
life  becomes  solemn  to  our  senses  when  we  examine  in  detail 
the  account  of  the  several  towns  of  Massachusetts.  From 
this  little  comnmnity  alone  one  hundred  and  ten  men  have 
enlisted  in  the  sublime  work  of  saving  their  country  by  arms. 
Of  this  enlistment  an  uncommon  proportion  have  fallen  to 
their  last  sleep.  They  fell  in  the  deadly  night-shades  of 
Carolina ;  in  the  early  battles  which  cheered  every  loyal  heart 
by  the  tidings  wafted  from  Eoanoke  and  Newbern ;  in  the 
conflict  with  an  armed  foe  and  with  a  more  fatal  climate  on 
the  Lower  Mississippi ;  in  the  terrible  and  unavailing  slaughter 
at  Drury's  Bluff  and  Cold  Harbor;  on  guard  and  in  the 
trenches  and  along  the  blazing  lines,  whenever  and  wherever 
they  were  called  ;  in  Libby,  which  is  yet  unavenged  ;  in  the 
stockade  of  Andersonville,  from  which  the  voices  of  thirty 
thousand  Union  boys,  starved,  tortured,  murdered,  now  break 
the  silence  of  death  in  a  chorus  cry  for  justice.  The  soldiers 
of  Eoyalston  have  lifted  their  souls  to  the  contemplation  of 
duty  and  to  tlie  heights  of  courage,  have  offered  up  their  lives 
to  the  sudden  death  of  the  field  and  the  slow  death  of  the 
prison,  and  have  perpetuated  the  name  of  the  town  which 
enrolled  them  in  annals  of  immortal  lustre.  So  long  as  we 
and  our  children  shall  enjoy  the  blessings  of  Union  which 
they  died  to  save,  and  shall  bless  the  God  of  our  ancestors 
for  sealinrr  with -their  sacrifices  the  freedom  of  all  races  in 
America,  their  names  shall  be  cherished  by  us,  and  sluill  de- 
scend to  everlasting  remembrance.  Let  those  names,  every 
one  of  them,  be  attached  to  this  commemorative  address,  and 
be  engrossed  in  your  official  records  for  endurance  till  these 


COMMEMORATIVE   ADDRESS   AT   ROYALSTON,   MASS.         127 

hills  shall  melt  away.     Ye  gallant  survivors,  welcome  to-day  ! 
Ye  crallant  dead,  hail  and  farewell ! 

From  this  I  might  easily  diverge  to  speak  of  the  prominent 
men  whom  I  learned  so  greatly  to  respect  as  sources  of  radiat- 
ing influence  from  this  central  common.  The  minister,  Mr. 
Perkins,  of  grave  yet  pleasant  memory, — how  I  remember 
him,  in  his  long  floating  summer  toga,  driving  us  in  at  the 
eight  o'cloclv  bell  on  every  Saturday  evening ;  Esquire  Joseph 
Estabrook,  our  first  postmaster,  our  first  gentleman,  our  first 
Senator,  to  my  perceptions  blending  the  old  and  the  new 
school  of  manners,  who  began  as  a  trader,  and  adopted  in 
later  years  the  pleasant  vocation  of  a  grazier,  having  a  genius 
for  noble  cattle  as  quick  and  intuitive  as  Daniel  AVebster  ever 
possessed,  whose  blood,  whether  remaining  here  or  transferred 
in  honorable  connections  to  other  places,  honors  the  parent 
stock  ;  Dr.  Batcheller,  absolutely  august  in  his  proportions, 
always  riding  rapidly  and  smoking  as  fast,  with  a  short  genial 
nod  and  a  happy  word  for  everybody  and  especially  for  the 
young  of  both  sexes  ;  ]\Iajor-General  Franklin  Gregory,  who 
succeeded  to  Estabrook  on  the  other  side  of  the  street,  gentle- 
man by  nature,  taking  by  instinct  to  the  military,  in  which 
he  excelled  all  others  and  in  that  capacity  presided  at  one  of 
the  festive  boards  in  reception  of  Lafayette,  the  most  enter- 
prising merchant  this  town  ever  had,  and  inaugurating  here 
her  largest  trade,  whose  untimely  death  in  1836  at  forty-four 
was  a  public  loss  irreparable ;  and  one  other,  who  far  out- 
lived all  these  his  associates,  whom  as  exemplar  of  a  long, 
simple,  successful,  and  virtuous  life,  whom  as  many  times 
your  llepresentative,  twice  your  Senator,  your  delegate  to  the 
Constitutional  Conventions  of  1820  and  1852,  your  honored 
townsman  in  his  lifetime,  and  benefactor  in  death,  I  should 
proudly  describe,  but  that  the  inheritance  of  his  name  for- 
bids,—  these,  and  others,  challenge  my  memories  in  this 
hour  and  hallow  the  spot  of  a  youthful  love.  They  have  all 
gone,  and  with  most  of  their  day  and  generation  they  repose 


128  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

in  these  burial-grounds  and  almost  in  our  presence.  And  so 
on  this  occasion  the  past  comes  back  to  me  in  the  memorials 
which  are  treasured  but  fractured,  leaving  to  me  this  morning 
the  melancholy  pleasure  of  uniting  my  heart  with  the  friends 
that  survive. 

The  industrial  characteristics  of  the  town  have  changed 
with  the  exigencies  of  the  age.  The  water-falls  have  been  re- 
claimed, and  the  ever-varying  arts  and  industries  inaugurated 
by  the  use  of  steam  as  a  practical  agency  and  by  the  division 
of  labor  have  come  in  here  as  elsewhere,  and  have  somewhat 
transformed  that  which  was  formerly  a  rural  life.  There  was 
very  early  in  its  history  a  quite  respectable  use  of  M'oollen 
machinery,  which  under  the  new  dispensation  of  industry  has 
been  greatly  increased,  until  no  small  part  of  the  local  market 
for  consumption  and  values  is  now  found  in  the  wheels  and 
cogs  and  spindles  which  make  South  Eoyalston  the  central 
point  of  active  enterprise  and  production.  While  that  busy 
hive  on  your  southei'ly  border,  having  the  double  advantage 
of  the  river  and  railroad,  must  henceforth  maintain  its  suprem- 
acy, let  us  indulge  the  hope  that  only  fraternal  relations  shall 
subsist  between  the  sections,  and  that  all  together  will  con- 
tinue for  generations  to  be  contented  and  united  under  the 
patriarchal  banner. 

To  the  agricultural  identities  of  the  population  I  mainly 
ascribe  its  almost  stationary  numerical  peculiarity.  From 
1790  to  1860,  a  term  of  seventy  years,  the  number  of  in- 
habitants only  varied  from  1,130  to  1,486,  from  one  decade  to 
another,  sometimes  gaining  a  little  and  sometimes  losing 
nearly  the  same. 

Your  annals  are  not  of  the  prizes  of  fortune  and  affluence, 
nor  contain  they  any  modern  chapter  of  poverty.  Those 
annals  tell  us  of  systematic  toil,  and  patriotic  struggle,  and 
patient  endurance,  and  the  Christian  faith.  The  economies 
of  industry  and  the  riches  of  the  heart  are  the  pride  and 
solace  of  the  record.     This  town  should  never  be  forgotten 


COMMEMORATIVK  ADDRESS   AT   ROYALSTON,   MASS.         129 

by  her  sons  wheresoever  they  may  wander.  For  myself,  as 
here  the  first  breath  was  drawn,  so  liere  the  last  word  should 
willingly  be  uttered.  If  the  sons  and  daughters  could  abandon 
and  forget  her  in  pursuit  of  more  exciting  scenes,  even  in 
larger  numbers  than  they  have  yet  gone,  —  if  the  country 
simplicity  of  the  early  days  should  settle  down  like  the 
clouds  of  the  province  over  her  fields  and  her  farms,  —  my  last 
remembrance  should  still  revert  to  the  happy  hills  and  pas- 
tures of  childhood,  and  I  would  still  address  her  in  the  lan- 
guage of  mingled  encouragement  and  admonition,  worthy  of 
the  poet  of  the  "  Deserted  Village,"  — 

"Aid  slightest  truth  witli  tliy  persuasive  strain  ; 
Teach  erring  man  to  spare  tlxe  rage  of  gain  : 
Teach  him,  that  towns  of  native  strength  possest, 
Though  very  poor,  may  still  be  very  blest, 
That  trade's  proud  empire  hastes  to  swift  decay, 
As  ocean  sweeps  the  labored  mole  away. 
While  self-dependent  power  can  time  defy, 
As  rocks  resist  the  billows  of  the  sky." 

Friends  and  fellow-citizens,  tliis  imperfect  tribute  to  the 
qualities  and  the  labors  of  our  ancestors  must  be  brought  to 
a  close.  At  the  end  of  one  hundred  years,  we,  tlieir  descen- 
dants, have  assembled  to  contemplate  in  brief  review  their 
lives  and  achievements.  I  submit  it  to  impartial  judgment, 
that  their  conduct  in  the  early  settlement,  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  town,  in  the  cultivation  of  the  fields,  in  their 
relations  with  the  great  events  of  the  country  in  all  the 
duties  of  Church  and  State,  in  the  salutary  examples  which 
have  passed  from  one  generation  to  another,  —  in  religion, 
industry,  politics,  and  daily  life,  —  has  been  such  that  we 
may  rehearse  it  with  pride  and  commend  it  to  those  who 
shall  come  after  us.  This  congregation  of  the  living  is  equalled 
in  numbers  by  those  who  sleep  in  this  town  in  the  quiet  en- 
closures of  the  dead.  They  speak  to  us  out  of  their  silence 
and  repeat  the  lesson  of  their  lives.  As  they  were  bound 
together  by  the  ties  of  friendship  in  the  primitive  period  of 
their  trials,  and  have  kept  the  councils  of  peace  and  unity 

9 


130  ADDRESSES    OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

through  all  the  stages  of  this  history,  so  let  that  spirit  con- 
trol another  age,  and  the  felicities  of  social  life  go  hand  in 
hand  with  public  stability  and  prosperity.  As  they  adapted 
themselves  to  the  changing  requisitions  of  the  general  indus- 
try and  economy,  so  let  the  tides  of  occupation,  as  they  come 
and  go  with  you,  bear  onward  a  community  never  behind  but 
always  advancing.  As  they  never  failed  to  uphold  the  honor 
of  their  country  by  their  hearts,  by  their  declarations,  and 
by  their  arms,  so  let  the  American  Union  and  the  Common- 
wealth of  Massachusetts  find  in  this  town  forever  most  con- 
stant friends  and  most  gallant  defenders.  As  they  have 
transmitted  to  our  keeping  the  institutions  of  worship  and 
education,  by  them  at  all  times  well  endowed  and  well  sup- 
ported, so  let  the  endowments  be  multiplied  and  the  support 
be  enlarged  till  the  bells  of  the  churches  and  the  schools  shall 
sound  a  welcome  in  every  ear.  And  when,  after  the  passage 
of  another  century,  your  successors  shall  meet  over  your  dust 
to  celebrate  their  day,  may  it  be  the  happiness  of  the  inter- 
vening generations  to  have  provided  for  them  as  little  for 
reproach  and  as  much  for  devout  thanksgiving  as  we  our- 
selves have  received  from  our  fathers. 


ADDRESS 

delivered  before  the  massachusetts  charixable  mechanic  associa- 
tion at  tremont  temple,  boston,  oct.  4,  1865. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen: 

I  CONGRATULATE  the  members  of  the  Massachusetts  Char- 
ital:)le  Mechanic  Association  that  with  the  return  of  peace 
the  opportunity  for  resuming  their  periodical  exhibition  is 
restored  under  circumstances  so  gratifying.  While  the  war 
lasted  your  seasons  of  ovation  to  the  useful  arts  were  indeed 
suspended  amid  the  pathos  and  pageantry  of  arms ;  but  the 
arts  themselves  suffered  little  abatement ;  rather  they  took 
from  the  excitations  of  the  time  new  intensity  to  themselves, 
and  repeated  the  lesson  taught  by  other  countries,  that  war 
periods  are  quite  apt  to  quicken  and  invigorate  the  national 
"enius.  Accordin^lv,  while  the  late  conflict  was  ravins,  and 
all  classes,  all  interests,  all  welfares,  were  to  some  extent 
swept  into  the  vortex,  the  records  of  the  Patent  Office  prove 
that  the  inventive  wits  of  the  country  kept  steadily  at  their 
work  under  the  highest  tension,  and  the  income  list  de- 
monstrates, what  we  all  knew  before  from  our  personal 
observation,  that  the  mechanic  arts  and  manufactures  were 
reaping  a  golden  harvest.  Nay,  even  more  than  this,  and 
pertaining  to  the  rationale  of  our  military  success,  these 
creative  and  constructive  forces  had  not  only  prepared  the 
free  States  for  the  war  when  it  came,  but  tliey  became  them- 
selves the  nerves  and  sinews  of  the  Treasury  which  shares 
with  the  soldier  the  honors  of  victory.  The  glistening  col- 
lection   of  ordnance    which    is    packed  in  yonder  hall  —  let 


132  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

US  hope  not  soon  to  be  needed  in  the  field  —  derives  its 
highest  interest  and  largest  instruction  from  the  bright  array 
of  its  peaceful  companionship,  the  engines,  the  fabrics,  the 
textiles,  which  almost  seem  conscious  of  their  sovereignty 
amid  martial  implements  and  martial  deeds. 

But  now  it  is  that  the  war  having  subsided  the  arts  as- 
sume once  more  their  control  in  the  state,  and  sway  all  the 
classes  and  all  the  employments  of  men.  We  are  soon  to  be 
in  statu  quo  ante  helium,  —  a  generation  pushing  the  origi- 
nalities of  motive  power  and  the  artificial  combinations  of 
forces  to  the  farthest  verge  of  empire.  This  is  an  age  and 
ours  a  country  of  mechanism.  The  mechanical  arts,  with 
which  for  all  purposes  of  discussion  manufactures  are  sy- 
nonymous, bear  the  rule  in  our  time.  The  prizes  of  fortune, 
which  formerly  fell  almost  exclusively  to  commerce,  now 
aliglit  more  frequently  here ;  and  without  these  agencies 
agriculture  would  never  have  awaked  from  the  sleep  of  the 
earlier  periods.  The  institutions  of  education,  without  aban- 
doning the  classic  fields,  recognize  and  apply  this  fact ;  and 
Boston,  as  much  a  city  of  mechanics  as  of  merchants, 
through  her  Lawrences,  father  and  son,  and  more  recently 
her  Hooper,  has  conferred  upon  the  neighboring  University 
new  and  practical  departments  of  contemporary  power  and 
lasting  beneficence.  And  so  I  take  up  the  condition  as  we 
find  it,  and  for  these  remaining  moments  will  consider  tJie 
relations  of  the  Meclianic  Arts  with  Liberty  and  Social  Pro- 
gress. 

No  lesson  of  modern  history  has  been  more  clearly  defined 
than  that  the  growtli  of  these  utilities  has  been  the  herald  of 
a  larger  freedom  than  was  before  enjoyed.  It  is  difficult 
indeed  —  so  imperfect  have  been  historical  writers  in  their 
delineation  of  domestic  custom  —  to  point  out  the  exact  con- 
nection which  one  improvement  after  another  has  borne  with 
the  general  results  ;  but  we  cannot  recur  to  the  record  of 
those  days  in  which  manufactures,  and  commerce,  which 
would  be  of  little  consequence  without  them,  first  caught  the 


BEFORE   THE    CHARITABLE   MECHANIC   ASSOCIATION.      133 

influence  of  the  pulsations  which  startled  the  people  of 
Europe  from  their  torpor,  without  becoming  ourselves  admir- 
ing witnesses  of  their  quickening  and  regenerating  effect 
upon  the  tyranny  of  a  thousand  preceding  years.  If  we  go 
back  to  what  under  our  classificatiou  of  periods  is  called  the 
Middle  Ages,  we  find  that  the  institution  of  feudalism,  half 
patriarchal  and  half  military,  held  everything  in  subjection 
until  artisanship,  manufactures,  and  trade  loosed  forever  the 
chain  and  the  grasp.  The  triumph  at  Eunnymede,  to  which 
we  are  in  the  habit  of  referring  the  landmarks  of  freedom, 
was  chiefly  the  success  of  feudal  lords  over  a  feudal  crown  ; 
it  brought  but  little  of  practical  liberty  to  the  nine  tenths  of 
all,  who  still  continued  under  a  baronial  despotism.  It  was 
not  till  the  mechanic  arts,  few  and  small  as  they  were, — 
manufactures  dawning  faintly  and  at  intervals  in  a  long  dark 
period,  dying  out  in  one  place  only  to  take  new  life  in  an- 
other, —  and  commerce,  depending  upon  these  for  its  support, 
always  sharing  their  fortunes  and  keeping  place  only  with 
their  progress,  —  had  varied  the  broad  dead  level  of  the  pub- 
lic condition,  had  liberalized  the  ranks  above  and  quickened 
the  masses  below,  had  opened  the  way  for  the  fusion  of  the 
social  classes,  and  penetrated  their  mutual  relations  with 
those  aspirations  which  have  beat  higher  and  higher  till  now 
they  control  the  Western  nations,  that  anything  which  can 
be  called  popular  freedom  had  a  genuine  and  transmitted 
existence.  In  the  descent  and  diffusion  of  liberal  ideas,  in 
the  promulgation  of  common  rights,  in  the  establishment  of 
systems  of  justice  and  equity,  towns  and  cities  have  proved 
to  be  the  most  effective  agencies ;  but  these  have  sprung  up 
only  in  sympathy  with  manufactures  and  commerce.  The 
mediaeval  landed  proprietor  conferred  no  such  benefits  upon 
the  race  ;  he  held  his  artisans  under  the  limitations  of  a  quasi- 
white  servitude,  and  for  all  the  purposes  of  reforming  social 
abuses  and  redeeming  men  from  vassalage  their  relation  was 
almost  of  as  little  value  as  that  of  the  mechanics  of  Greece 
and   Eome,  who   were   slaves.     If   the   annals   of  mankind 


134  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

chronicle  anything  with  a  point  and  a  moral  to  it,  it  is  that 
for  centuries  there  were  no  considerable  and  enduring  manu- 
factures which  were  popular  in  their  origin,  popular  in  their 
uses,  and  popular  in  their  relations.  I  allow  that  among  the 
memorials  of  early  time,  partly  rescued  and  partly  entombed 
beyond  our  knowledge,  there  are  sublime  traces  of  lost  arts. 
Wonderful  to  this  generation,  marvels  to  the  modern  science 
of  mechanics,  they  loom  out  from  Nineveh  and  Babylon  and 
Jerusalem,  and  Egyptian  pyramids,  and  later  cities  even  now 
under  the  process  of  exhumation,  full  of  interesting  disclo- 
sure to  the  antiquary  and  the  scholar,  but  bringing  little 
instruction  as  to  the  advancement  and  enfranchisement  of 
the  world,  and  scarcely  coming  at  all  within  the  circuit  of  the 
golden  links  which  in  our  da}'  bind  the  productions  of  genius 
and  art  to  the  welfare  of  humankind.  They  are  splendid 
encomiums  upon  the  skill  of  the  past ;  but  they  furnish  not 
much  aid  to  the  progressive  lessons  of  our  political  economy, 
which  builds  up  Boston  and  Lowell  and  Lawrence  and 
"Worcester,  and  infuses  them  with  the  springs  of  immortal 
life.  Such  a  benign  mission  was  reserved  to  a  later  period  of 
popular  arts.  Those  were  feudal  times,  having  an  abundance 
of  rural  life,  protected  by  the  castle,  the  turret,  and  the  port- 
cullis. 

In  classifying  the  periods  and  the  causes  of  the  deliver- 
ance of  Europe,  a  philosophical  historian  (Mr.  Hallam)  lias 
ascribed  one  of  the  first  degrees  of  progress  to  the  introduction 
of  woollen  manufactures  into  Flanders,  nearly  six  hundred 
years  ago.  So  magical  was  the  effect  that  the  wings  of  trade 
opened  wide  and  far,  that  little  district  became  a  market  of 
renown,  and  merchants  from  seventeen  kingdoms  besides 
strangers  from  almost  unknown  countries  were  domiciled  m 
the  inconsiderable  capital  of  West  Flanders,  that  palpitated 
under  the  new  dispensation  of  industry.  How  infectious  are 
these  examples  !  They  spread  immediatel}'  througli  the  free 
cities  of  Germany,  and  wherever  tlie  most  mechanical  skill 
and  production  was  developed,  there  the  greatest  civil  liberty 


BEFOKE   THE    CHARITABLE    MECHANIC   ASSOCLiTION.       135 

was  enjoyed.  England  invoked  the  charm ;  and  as  if  real- 
izing the  glory  of  the  title  which  subsequent  history  has 
Sfiven  to  him,  of  the  "father  of  English  commerce,"  —  "a 
title  by  wliich  he  may  claim  more  of  the  gratitude  of  his 
countrymen  than  as  the  hero  of  Crecy,"  —  her  great  Edward 
opened  a  stream  of  emigration  from  the  manufactures  of  the 
Continent  which  continued  to  pour  its  life-giving  influences 
into  his  realm  for  an  hundred  years  afterwards.  The  com- 
merce of  the  Baltic  sprang  into  existence,  and  Northern  and 
Southern  Europe  greeted  each  other  for  the  first  time  in 
peace  and  on  shipboard ;  ships  of  nearly  a  thousand  tons 
astonished  the  god  of  the  sea ;  maritime  law  and  the  law  sys- 
tem of  nations  took  form  and  expression ;  international  comity 
and  freedom  rose  to  influence  and  respect ;  banks  started  into 
life,  the  repositories  of  so  many  hopes,  and  bills  of  exchange 
were  invented,  those  fictitious  cords  which  bind  together  re- 
mote nations  in  faith  and  confidence ;  the  desolation  of  the 
wars  of  the  Eoses  was  quickly  repaired;  manufactures  and 
trade  obtained  a  place  in  the  Statutes  of  Parliament,  and  from 
that  day  down  they  have  swelled  the  volumes  of  its  proceed- 
ings with  the  record  of  their  fraternal  progress,  their  equal  be- 
neficence, their  indissoluble  glory.  Those  who  were  engaged  in 
these  occupations  became  respectable  before  the  law,  and  be- 
gan to  assume  an  equality  with  the  landed  proprietor ;  for  by 
a  statute  it  was  provided  that  an  artisan  or  tradesman,  —  you 
will  bear  in  mind  that  the  two  have  travelled  in  company 
together  on  the  same  benevolent  mission  to  the  race  and  to 
its  now  conceded  honors,  —  if  possessed  of  real  estate  of  tlie 
value  of  £500,  should  be  permitted  to  dress  himself  like  a 
squire  of  £100. 

The  struggle  between  arbitrary  power  and  the  rising  classes 
was  protracted  in  its  duration  and  varied  in  its  vicissitudes  of 
success  and  defeat,  but  every  generation  brought  it  nearer  to 
its  termination.  The  hue  of  change  was  passing  over  the 
social  condition,  and  the  power  of  landholders  was  yielding  to 
the  free  spirit  of  the  towns.     It  was  not  in  the  tent,  but  in 


136  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

the  workshop,  that  modern  liberty  was  dreaming  of  her  com- 
ing joys  ;  it  was  not  in  Gothic  halls,  but  in  the  marts  of  trade, 
that  equality  of  rights  was  panting  with  a  new-born  con- 
sciousness ;  it  was  not  in  rural  but  in  nrban  life,  in  the  smoke 
of  cities,  in  the  din  of  ports,  that  the  reforms  were  maturing 
that  shonld  strike  the  century  l^ells  with  the  last  note  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  awake  mankind  by  the  click  and  whirl  and 
thunder  of  the  arts  to  the  amazing  scenery  wliich  is  now 
unfolding  before  us  without  exciting  our  surprise.  There  it 
was  that  new  ideas  of  profit  and  of  property,  new  conceptions 
of  creative  power  and  artistic  combination,  disturbed  the  stag- 
nation of  all  previous  time ;  and  it  was  there  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  common  strength,  and  invigorated  by  a  more 
rapid  circulation  of  thought,  that  the  stubborn  spirit  of  free- 
dom first  made  its  roots  broadly  and  profoundly.  The  king 
became  disquieted  at  the  rapid  increase  of  London  ;  but  arti- 
sanship,  trade,  and  shipping  found  their  way  into  Parliament. 
The  democratical  interest,  distinguishing  the  orders  of  industry 
from  the  territorial  aristocracy,  was  steadily  diffusing  itself 
and  accumulating  its  power,  running  in  even  flood  with  ideas 
of  equality  and  independence.  Aided  by  the  practical  arts  it 
gained  the  first  modern  triumph ;  for  while  in  an  earlier  day 
Wat  Tyler  could  only  summon  a  powerless  rabble  around  his 
standard,  who  fell  easily  before  the  knights  in  their  armor  of 
steel,  Cromwell  afterwards  gathered  his  heroic  numbers  from 
the  houses  of  mechanics  and  merchants,  Puritans  in  their 
religion  and  workmen  in  their  lives,  and  a  new  era  was  opened 
at  Marston  Moor. 

The  first  conflict  and  the  first  victory  of  the  arts  you  cele- 
brate this  evening  were  waged  and  won  in  the  land  of  our 
ancestors,  whose  history  is  strewn  with  choice  memorials  of 
the  sources  of-  our  own  freedom.  The  progress  of  Great 
Britain,  since  she  emerged  from  the  middle  period,  has  been 
the  gradual  yet  constant  growth  of  a  nation  of  mechanics. 
The  constitution  of  England  —  her  unwritten  law,  deejjly  em- 
bedded in  the  customs  of  her  people  —  relates  back  for  its 


BEFORE   THE   CHAKITABLE   MECHANIC   ASSOCIATION.      137 

derivation  through  all  the  stages  of  her  advancement  in  these 
utilities.  The  stern  features  of  feudalism,  which  first  gave  to 
it  an  ascendency  over  the  crown,  have  received  in  successive 
periods  the  softening  influences  of  the  arts,  which  have  made 
her  system  of  industry  a  nursery  of  liberal  ideas.  Their 
imperial  life,  their  enfranchised  individuality,  from  which  we 
at  first  derived  our  own,  have  grown  up  from  her  wharves 
and  warehouses  and  workshops  until  now  they  have  become 
tlie  first  estate  of  the  realm.  That  no  tax  should  be  extorted 
without  the  consenting  voice  of  the  legislature,  has  come  from 
the  early  traders  and  mechanics  whose  defiance  spoke  in  the 
cause  of  John  Hampden ;  every  representative  reform  has 
been  the  achievement  of  the  towns  rising  over  the  ruins  of 
baronial  towers ;  that  no  man  sliall  be  imprisoned  by  the 
royal  will  is  one  of  the  flowers,  not  of  regal  dispensation,  but 
of  the  new  classification  of  labor;  religious  freedom  to  the 
dissenter  has  gushed  out  from  the  wealth  and  influence  of 
dissenters  who  run  machinery  and  watch  the  hustings ;  the 
independence  of  the  judges  is  a  fruit  of  the  middle  interest  of 
the  nation  which  can  disrobe  the  ermine  when  it  becomes 
impure ;  the  limitation  of  parliaments  is  the  decree  which  is 
heard  from  the  Manchesters,  the  Sheflields,  and  the  Liver- 
pools  ;  the  liberty  of  the  press  is  the  inspiring  utterance  that 
rises  from  a  thousand  fields,  on  her  land  and  sea,  in  which  a 
roar  of  water-falls  mingles  with  a  myriad  of  steam-engines  in 
tones  which  all  the  kings  of  the  earth  cannot  silence.  In  the 
whole  round  of  her  drum-beat  her  conquests  have  been  the 
conquests  of  these  arts.  If  it  be  true,  as  it  has  been  said,  that 
Arkwright,  who  placed  cotton  spinning  in  the  weird  sisterhood 
of  national  powers,  bore  the  English  nation  triumphantly 
through  the  wars  of  the  French  Eevolution,  it  is  equally  true 
that  neither  Pitt  nor  Wellington,  but  Watt,  who  organized 
the  steam-engine,  was  the  conqueror  of  Napoleon.  And 
witliin  our  own  memory  the  final  disinthralment  from  an 
overshadowing  aristocracy  was  secured  in  a  single  day  by  the 
brilliant  triumph  of  the  "  untaught,  inarticulate  genius  "  of 


138  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER  II.    BULLOCK, 

George  Stephenson,  when  he  gave  the  first  start  under  high 
pressure  to  tlie  express  train  that  made  over  the  Liverpool 
and  ]\Ianchester  road  the  grand  trial  trip  of  the  age  of  pro- 
gress ;  tlie  inventor  and  engineer  being  the  plain  Northum- 
berland mechanic,  —  the  witnesses,  Brougham  and  Wellington 
and  Huskisson,  ladies,  court,  and  people,  —  and  the  freight, 
all  the  interests  and  all  the  hopes  of  civilization.  Truthfully 
and  philosophically  did  Dr.  Arnold,  of  Rugby,  exclaim,  as  he 
stood  upon  one  of  the  bridges  and  watched  the  train  flasliing 
throuuh  the  fields  belonging  to  lords  w^ho  had  done  their 
utmost  to  thwart  the  experiment,  "  I  rejoice  to  see  it,  and  to 
think  thoi  feudality  is  gone  forever ." 

It  wovdd  be  pursuing  a  topic  already  too  familiar  to  discuss 
at  any  length  the  relations  of  the  mechanic  arts  with  the 
development  of  public  liberty  in  this  country.     They  were, 
more  distinctly  than  other  interests,  the  causes  and  agencies 
of  its  independence.     About  the  middle  of  the  last  century 
manufactures  acquired  an  importance  in  Europe  whicli  dis- 
tanced all  former  example,  and  spread  rapidly  to  this  side  of 
the  water,  where  they  found  a  population  in  the  Northern 
colonies  wlio  for  many  years  had  been  trying  their  hands  at 
the  same  kind  of  work.     Under  the  new  impulse  which  now 
began  everywhere  to  stimulate  these  pursuits,  the  people  of 
Massachusetts  and  of  other  colonies  eagerly  caught  at  all 
suggestions  which  came  from  Europe,  and  quickly  added  to 
them  their  own  originalities  of  invention.     Then  came  the 
repressive  and  at  times  prohibitory  policy  of  Great  Britain, 
having  all  the  power  of  Parliament  to  support  it,  aiming  to 
destroy  these   hives   of  skilled  labor  while   they  were   yet 
forming,  and  before  they  should  be  able  to  compete  with 
those  of  the  mother  country.     The  purpose  was  the  impover- 
ishment of  the  colonies  in  the  departments  of  handicraft; 
and,  as  Mr.  Burke  said  in  his  great  speech  on  Conciliation, 
the  English  nation  seemed  to  act  upon   the   thought  that 
America  Avas  becoming  her  rival  in  this  class  of  production. 
Such  legislation  aroused  a  responsive  spirit  of  resolution  on 


BEFORE   THE   CHARITABLE   MECHANIC   ASSOCIATION.        139 

our  side,  and  the  men  who  were  pursuing  these  labors,  and 
were  imparting  to  the  life  of  New  England  a  vigor  and  elas- 
ticity she  had  never  before  possessed,  became  restive  under 
the  restraint,  resentful  to  tyranny,  and  ready  for  independence. 
So  that,  when  the  time  came  for  rupturing  the  tie  of  empire, 
the  question  of  taxation  was  rather  the  occasion  than  the 
primary  cause  of  the  war.  The  Revolution  was  a  necessity 
out  of  years  of  accumulating  measures  of  despotic  vigor  and 
repression,  all  directed  to  shattering  the  arm  of  art  and  skill 
in  these  Northern  communities.  The  last  blow  which  evoked 
the  spark  that  burst  into  the  blaze  of  conflict  fell  ostensibly 
indeed  upon  commerce ;  but  the  thousands  who  had  been 
struodinG:  at  the  infant  manufactures  of  the  time,  whose 
manly  liopes  and  sinewy  arms  had  been  kept  down  by  legis- 
lative oppression,  dictated  from  a  throne  three  thousand  miles 
away,  now  outnumbered  the  merchants  and  helped  them  to 
spread  the  flame.  These  were  the  men,  the  mechanics  and 
artisans  of  Boston  and  the  seaboard,  who  made  up  the  con- 
stituency that  stood  behind  Samuel  Adams  as  he  walked 
these  streets,  watching  and  directing  the  rising  storm.  There 
was  something  in  their  experience  under  the  British  colonial 
system  that  urged  them  on  to  the  contest ;  there  was  some- 
thing more  in  their  occupation,  as  creators  in  the  system  of 
political  economy  and  in  the  domain  of  art,  which  elevated 
them  to  lofty  conceptions  of  manhood  and  made  them  fit  for 
earnest  service  in  the  struggle  for  liberty. 

Singularly  and  especially,  after  the  Eevolution,  were  your 
interests  instrumental  in  organizing  peace  under  a  constitu- 
tional union  of  the  States.  The  name  of  the  early  president 
of  this  association,  Paul  Revere,  worthily  retained  in  our  da}'' 
in  the  relations  of  hospitality,  of  trade,  and  of  manufactures, 
remembered  in  connection  with  all  that  he  accomplished  for 
the  establishment  of  our  National  Government,  at  the  first 
mention  of  it  snatches  from  my  lips  everything  I  could  say, 
if  I  ought  to  say  even  a  word,  upon  a  branch  of  my 
theme  so  interesting   as  this   is.      It  has  always   appeared 


1-iO  ADDRESSES  OF  ALEXANDER  U.   BULLOCK. 

to  me   the   wonder   of  our  history,   how,  out  of  the  chaos 
of  tlie  individualities  of  States,  out  of  commercial  diversi- 
ties and  political  antagonisms,  out  of  the  idiosyncrasies  of 
climate  and  domestic  institutions,  out  of  conflicting  remi- 
niscences of  origin,  settlement,  and  race,  any  union  at  all  ever 
came  to  us.     But  the  wisdom  of  the  God  of  our  fathers  was 
higher  than  ours.     Then  rises  before  me  the  beauty,  the  mys- 
tery, the  harmony,  of  the  States  and  the  classes  wliich  from 
so  great  diversity  united  in  framing  and  confirming  the  Con- 
stitution.    Our  own  New  England  was  divided,  so  that  if 
Massachusetts  had  an  interest  and  a  patriotism  which  over- 
came some  of  her  theories  and  gave  her  among  the  earliest  to 
the  Union,  Ehode  Island  had  a  revenue  policy  and  perhaps 
some  other  reasons  which  kept  her  out  until  a  little  after  the 
eleventh  hour.     In  the  conventions  of  New  York  and  Massa- 
chusetts I  suppose  that  question,  so  vastly  interesting  to  the 
generations  of  America,  to  have  been  decisively  settled  for 
the  whole  confederation ;  and  in  both  of  these  States  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  now,  in  the  light  of  tradition  and  history, 
that  if  it  had  been  left  exclusively  to  the  landed  interest,  the 
Government   under   whose   flag   your   exhibition   illustrates 
alilce  the  victories  of  arms  and  of  arts  covdd  scarcely  have 
been  established.     Here  in  ]\Iassachusetts  the  communities 
in  which  manufactures  allied  to  commerce  had  made  most 
progress  turned  the  trembling  scales  in  favor  of  its  adoption ; 
and  I  believe  it  is  a  fact  now  well  understood  that  when  emi- 
nent men,  who  led  the  councils  of  those  days  in  this  State, 
hesitated  about  the  ratification,  the  manufacturers  and  me- 
chanics, animated  by  the  fire  and  patriotism  of  Revere,  pressed 
them  up  to  duty  and  enforced  the  decision  of  the  convention. 
Quite  similar  were  the   circumstances   which  attended  the 
result  in  New  Tork,  in  whose  convention  the  constitution 
received  the  vote  of  only  tlie  slightest  majority  of  delegates. 
To  the  genius  and  efforts  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  which  never 
shone  more  conspicuously  than  in  the  convention  at  Pough- 
keepsie,  that  conclusion  will  forever  be  attributed.     He  was 


BEFORE   THE   CHAEITABLE   MECHANIC   ASSOCIATION.        141 

a  delegate  from  the  commercial  metropolis,  but  his  election 
may  be  traced  to  the  meeting  of  the  mechanics  of  that  city 
who  assembled  at  the  house  of  William  Ketchum  and  deter- 
mined that  he  should  be  elected.  History,  that  selects  her 
heroes,  whether  in  peace  or  iu  war,  from  the  number  of  those 
whose  speech  rules  the  forum  or  whose  command  propels 
squadrons  on  the  field,  and  cannot  pause  to  inquire  who 
chose  the  orator  or  who  fought  under  the  order  and  the  bu- 
gle, awards  to  Ames  and  his  associates  in  Massachusetts,  to 
Hamilton  and  his  associates  in  New  York,  the  honors  of  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  ages  of  glory  under  it. 
Inquiry  and  analysis  disclose  to  us  the  antecedent  detail,  — 
how  the  manufacturers  and  artisans  of  Boston  and  New  York 
furnished  to  Ames  the  inspiration  of  his  eloquence,  and  to 
Hamilton  the  opportunity  for  the  amazing  display  of  his  in- 
tellect and  his  demonstration  which  carried  the  day  for  all 
coming  time.  The  fame  of  your  association  culminates  this 
evening  in  the  bare  mention  of  their  renown. 

The  limitations  of  this  evening's  exercise  will  not  permit  me 
to  consider  with  any  detail  the  influence  of  the  mechanic  arts 
upon  social  progress  ;  that  would  be  a  task  for  history  and 
for  volumes.  It  will  surely  be  sufficient  for  the  lighter  pur- 
poses of  the  present  occasion  to  treat  the  topic  rather  by  illus- 
tration than  by  narrative  or  argument,  especially  since  our 
own  experience  and  observation  supply  all  needed  argument. 

An  eminent  English  writer,  Mr.  Carlyle,  who  has  not  been 
at  all  satisfied  with  us  in  war,  has  criticised  our  condition  as 
severely  under  peace,  —  claiming  that  we  have  lost  our  belief 
in  the  invisible,  and  that  we  live  and  hope  and  work  only  in 
the  visible,  the  practical,  and  the  mechanical.  The  theory 
is,  that  our  best  days  are  over,  that  our  spirit  has  become 
tame  and  enfeebled,  and  that  under  the  prevalence  of  the 
material,  the  commercial,  and  the  mechanical,  our  social  tone 
and  temper  has  lost  its  higher  energy  and  sentiment.  No 
argument  can  satisfy  this  theory,  but  historical  illustrations 
scatter  it  to  the  imperceptible  winds.     This  transcendental 


142  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

ideal  of  life,  in  its  contrast  with  the  later  and  experimental 
ages,  is  illustrated  in  the  type  of  the  earlier  centuries  which 
gave  the  trial  to  that  doctrine  and  opened  the  way  for  the 
trial  of  ours.     I  invite  you  to  the  comparison. 

During  the  long  period  which  closed  when  modern  history 
began  there  was  no  lack  of  philosophy,  but  a  vast  want  of 
mechanical  utility.  Great  masters  filled  the  world  with  syllo- 
gisms, but  with  no  new  tools  for  workmen.  They  were  rich 
in  brilliant  conceits,  fine  abstractions,  and  keen  dialectics ; 
but  few  new  inventions,  or  practical  improvements  in  morals 
or  social  existence,  had  a  place  in  their  barren  fields.  The 
conveniences  and  comforts  of  life  were  esteemed  too  vulgar 
for  that  philosophy.  Alike  in  the  night  of  the  pagan  schools 
and  in  the  dim  twilight  of  a  corrupted  Christianity,  men  dis- 
puted in  never-ending  cycles  of  abstract  conceptions,  of  ideal 
good,  of  the  essence  of  things ;  and  where  one  left  off,  an- 
other began  and  ended.  The  useful  was  undignified;  and 
while  true  wisdom  might  well  be  found  in  reasoning  after  the 
organization  of  the  soul,  it  could  not  come  down  to  the  idea 
of  windows  through  which  men  might  see  and  of  pipes  that 
should  warm  their  freezing  bodies.  Angles  of  thought  were 
polished  to  more  than  Damascan  lustre,  but  angles  of  iron  in 
its  thousand  styles  for  use  would  have  been  a  scandal  to  the 
Grove  and  the  Portico.  Even  the  imperial  intellect  of  Aris- 
totle might  have  been  pleased  by  the  suggestion  of  a  swinging 
pendulum,  as  illustrative  of  the  action  of  the  human  mind, 
but  the  intimation  of  its  application  to  a  Yankee  timepiece 
would  have  ruffled  his  proud  spirit.  The  idea  of  the  electric 
fluid  would  have  been  accounted  sublime  as  an  abstraction, 
but  the  sight  of  Franklin  flying  a  kite  to  evoke  an  eternal 
law  from  the  skies  to  protect  our  houses  and  barns  would 
have  wrung  a  pang  from  many  a  Grecian  philosopher.  Those 
were  great  times  and  great  men,  but  there  were  few  benefac- 
tors in  the  larger  sense  pertaining  to  the  whole  of  time. 
There  was  little  of  progress,  for  all  that  was  taught  died  with 
the  disputant,  and  there  was  nothing  left  to  be  transmitted 


BEFORE   THE   CHARITABLE   MECHANIC   ASSOCIATION".        143 

to  the  next  age  for  adoption  or  improvement.  Even  down  to 
the  hearing  of  modern  ears  this  subtle  philosophy  held  its 
control ;  alchemy,  astrology,  and  the  vain  pursuit  after  the 
philosopher's  stone,  were  in  highest  favor,  while  the  arts  and 
inventions  that  supply  and  elevate  the  race  were  in  scholastic 
outlawry.  During  all  this  philosophical  millennium,  govern- 
ments were  treated  as  ingenious  agencies  for  conducting  men 
to  the  ideal  of  virtue,  and  not  as  the  splendid  structures  of 
experimental  wisdom  for  enriching  the  people  in  all  that  art 
and  wealth  and  morals  can  provide  for  the  nmltiiDlying  -wants 
of  social  man.  Unpractical  schoolmen  rose  in  proud  suc- 
cession, and  through  their  gigantic  intellectual  machinery 
furnished  dogmas  enough  to  tlie  State  and  the  Church  for 
generations  even  now  unborn  ;  but,  viewed  from  the  obser- 
vatory of  a  modern  living  age,  they  appear  in  some  respects 
not  unlike  those  massive  windmills  which  formerly  amused 
summer  hours  at  Newport,  whose  ponderous  arms  revolved 
with  fearful  momentum  even  after  the  last  kernel  of  fruit  had 
departed  from  the  hopper. 

But  at  length,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  our  new  producing 
powers  acquired  possession  of  the  field.  Their  rapid  devel- 
opment has  been  commonly  ascribed  to  the  change  which 
Lord  Bacon  introduced  to  the  studies  and  pursuits  of  men, 
under  which  physics,  arts,  utility,  progress,  have  for  centuries 
ruled  over  the  circuit  of  human  thought.  Certain  it  is  that 
within  a  century  after  his  accession  to  the  mastery,  the 
toiling  and  patient  philosophy  of  induction  and  experiment, 
of  investigating  step  by  step  and  process  by  process  for  the 
laws  which  guide  mankind  in  their  efforts  to  subdue  matter 
and  combine  forces,  was  held  in  highest  favor.  Agriculture 
started  from  its  slumberous  bed  as  if  touched  by  the  wand  of 
a  charmer.  The  disputations  of  the  schoolmen  receded,  and 
governments  and  morals  and  arts  began  to  be  judged  by  their 
effects.  Alchemy  and  astrology  fled  with  their  lost  dignity, 
and  the  study  of  natural  elements  and  the  arramzincf  and  ad- 
justing  of  natural  forces  took  their  places.     Kings  had  their 


144  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

laboratories,  judges  studied  water-courses,  and  fine  ladies 
turned  some  of  their  patronizing  glances  from  the  halls  of 
courtiers  to  tlie  hitherto  vulgar  labors  which  make  tradesmen, 
artisans,  and  farmers.  Architecture  began  to  be  contemplated 
in  its  bearings  upon  the  common  ranks  of  life ;  houses  to  be 
ventilated ;  lands  to  be  drained ;  machinery  to  be  invented 
and  set  to  work ;  trade  to  become  respectable ;  and  the  pur- 
suits of  man  to  receive  that  direction  which  has  continued  in 
an  ascending  scale  until  now  our  civilization  is  largely  a  record 
of  these  practical  studies  and  these  multiplied  powers. 

Suppose  now  that  Lord  Bacon  could  come  back  in  the  flesh, 
accompanied,  if  you  please,  by  some  of  those  masters  in  nat- 
ural science  and  mechanical  construction  who  have  become 
familiar  to  us  as  public  benefactors,  and  could  tarry  long 
enough  to  survey  this  vast  convolution  of  results  which 
sweeps  the  globe  in  its  circle  of  blessing,  —  what  a  scene 
would  meet  their  astonished  gaze ! 

They  would  behold  hundreds  of  millions  of  people  engaged 
in  occupations  which  in  the  old  time  had  not  been  thought 
of,  —  such  a  panoramic  view  of  enterprise  and  production 
and  consumption  as  would  have  startled  their  own  vivid  im- 
agination in  their  lifetime.  They  would  witness  coal-fields 
and  iron  mines  reclaimed  from  long  neglect  and  become  the 
very  bases  of  modern  civilization,  without  which  nations  can- 
not be  opulent  or  independent,  —  the  earth  kindly  opening 
its  depths  to  receive  myriads  of  men  who  by  the  light  of 
science  and  the  aid  of  arts  bid  defiance  to  its  darkness  and  its 
gases,  pump  away  its  water  and  its  refuse,  and  extract  the 
ores  and  metals  which  are  wrought  to  fit  a  thousand  utilities 
and  to  become  objects  of  inspiring  beauty ;  agriculture  re- 
stored to  the  honor  of  the  time  of  the  patriarchs,  goaded  by 
energies  unknown  before,  enlivened  by  modern  machinery 
and  modern  markets  and  in  return  conferring  upon  them  its 
victorious  sheaves.     They  would  behold 

"Steam,  that  fleshless  arm, 
"Whose  pulses  leap  with  floods  of  living  fire," 


BEFORE   THE    CHAKITABLE   MECHANIC   ASSOCIATION.        145 

chanmnGf  the  features  of  the  world,  —  commingling  the  flags  of 
countries  in  the  dance  of  the  sea,  —  darting  great  ships  in  de- 
fiance of  the  winds  and  the  breakers,  and  railroad  cars  where 
before  no  horse  had  penetrated,  —  operating  more  machines 
than  the  hour  would  permit  me  to  enumerate  if  I  knew 
them,  —  sending  out  from  this  city  every  morning  before  the 
cock  crows  thrice  an  hundred  thousand  printed  sheets  which 
cabinets  read  before  they  decide,  and  all  New  England  before  it 
approves,  —  facilitating  intercourse,  acquaintance,  refinement, 
joy ;  in  Great  Britain  alone  twenty  thousand  steam-engines 
driven  day  and  night  with  a  power  equal  to  two  millions  of 
men;  the  artificial  and  mechanical  forces  of  our  land  exceeding 
all  the  hands  of  the  four  continents  of  the  globe  a  century  ago, 
and  two  fifths  of  our  male  population  over  fifteen  years  of  age 
employed  in  manufactures,  the  mechanic  arts,  commerce,  and 
mining ;  bays  and  rivers  and  gulfs  spanned  with  a  strengtli 
that  shall  never  fail  and  with  a  beauty  that  shall  survive  the 
decay  of  the  Parthenon ;  the  wilds  of  the  country  reclaimed, 
cities  starting  up  as  by  enchantment,  crowded  with  order 
and  intelligence  by  day  and  lighted  up  by  a  flame  that  never 
goes  out  by  night ;  in  our  own  empire  thirty  thousand  miles 
of  railroads  making  peace  always  ready  for  war  and  converting 
war  into  peace  with  a  quickness  and  a  quittal  which  other 
times  never  knew ;  in  this  same  America  twenty-five  thou- 
sand miles  of  wires,  —  I  dare  say  there  are  more,  —  mute  yet 
eloquent,  talking  up  to  the  high  noon  of  night  of  wants  and 
supplies,  of  trades  and  battles,  ever  flashing  with  the  messages 
of  the  living  and  the  dead ;  a  commerce  taking  the  products 
of  the  land  and  of  the  machines  to  the  side  of  the  sea  and 
there  committing  them  to  another  country,  another  world ;  a 
system  of  credit  and  exchange  founded  in  religious  truth, 
sustained  by  honor  and  faith,  blessing  him  who  gives  and 
him  who  receives ;  a  civilization  they  would  behold  and 
admire  and  pray  for,  which  places  it  in  the  power  of  man  to 
"  wield  these  elements  and  arm  him  with  the  force  of  all 
their  legions." 

10 


/ 


146  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

This  photograph  Lord  Bacon  and  his  associates  would  ac- 
cept as  the  picture  of  a  portion,  and  only  a  portion,  of  the  fruits 
of  the  tree  of  modern  utility,  which  he  assisted  in  planting, 
whose  roots  are  intrenched  in  every  well-ordered  state  to-day, 
whose  pendent  boughs  canopy  our  time.  These  they  would 
recognize  as  the  trophies  which  are  sometimes  characterized 
as  the  material  successes  of  commerce  and  the  mechanic  arts. 
Nor  material  successes  only.  For  the  survey  would  be  in- 
complete which  should  not  perceive  the  average  duration  of 
human  life  lengthened  out,  alleviations  of  suffering  discovered, 
some  diseases  eradicated  ;  these  steam-presses  opening  a  flood 
of  literature  and  scattering  the  Holy  Scriptures  like  leaves 
for  the  healing  of  the  nations;  the  English  language  per- 
vading the  earth  with  exquisite  thought  and  immortal  char- 
ity ;  schools  made  free,  universities  accessible,  and  churches 
thrown  open,  where  but  recently  solitude  reigned  supreme ; 
institutions  of  benevolence  sending  up  to  Heaven  their  thanks- 
giving and  spreading  their  benefactions  through  society  for  the 
ills  of  the  body  and  the  mind ;  history  at  her  work  clearing 
up  the  mysteries  of  time ;  poetry  sending  its  deep-toned 
vibrations  through  the  heart  of  the  age;  the  fine  arts  awak- 
ening the  soul  in  its  daily  toil  to  the  eternities  of  love  and 
beauty ;  and  the  body  of  law  and  order  breathing  with  a  free 
spirit  and  laying  a  kind  restraining  hand  upon  the  wayward- 
ness of  our  nature.  Who  is  the  man  so  unbelievinsr  in  the 
very  presence  of  this  world-wide  exhibition  which  is  passing 
before  him,  as  to  say  that  this  mechanical  period  has  not  out- 
stripped every  former  period  in  the  generality  of  its  progress 
and  in  the  loftiness  of  its  ethics  ? 

So  also,  gentlemen,  the  area  of  the  hall  of  liberty  and  the 
market  house  which  you  have  thrown  open  to  the  public  for 
three  weeks  of  holidays  and  for  universal  instruction,  is 
crowded  with  proofs  that  your  department  of  industry  is 
alive  with  the  his/her  taste  and  sentiment  which  becomes  a 
part  of  aesthetic  culture.  There  I  behold  inert  substances 
transformed  from  their  own  mute  creation  into  the  properties 


BEFORE   THE   CHARITABLE   MECHANIC   ASSOCIATION.        147 

and  activities  of  mechanical  life,  —  that  which  was  dead  in 
nature  made  by  skill  and  art  to  speak  in  a  language  felt  and 
understood  hy  the  great  circle  of  humanity,  —  the  wood,  the 
metal,  and  the  ore  so  changed  as  to  become  a  charm  to  the  eye, 
music  to  the  ear,  and  an  awakening  medium  to  all  the  sen- 
sations which  are  undying  in  the  heart  of  man.  I  see  the 
rude  sands  scooped  from  the  natural  beds  of  Berkshire  fused 
with  alkalies,  and  unified  into  forms  which,  if  they  were  less 
common,  would  be  valued  as  the  rarer  diamonds.  I  witness 
that  model  steam-engine  under  action,  which  was  brought 
hither  from  our  county  of  Worcester,  out  of  a  shop  where  I 
have  seen  three  hundred  loyal  and  lordly  men  pounding  their 
intelligence  into  the  work  of  their  hands ;  my  eye  ranges  over 
the  textures  made  up  out  of  the  fleece  from  the  Western 
prairies,  or  the  white  ball  from  the  Southern  savannas,  so 
fine  that  they  recall  the  fact  which  has  been  recorded  that 
a  pound  of  cotton  has  been  lengthened  and  attenuated  into  a 
thread  of  a  thousand  miles.  These  are  the  works,  but  whence 
has  come  the  conception  ?  These  are  the  arts,  but  who  are 
the  artists  ?  Is  it  according  to  the  analogies  of  our  knowledge 
that  they  who  perform  these  things  can  be  coarse  and  rude 
in  their  natures,  unresponsive  to  taste  and  sentiment  and 
humanity  ?  The  modern  artificer  is  the  creator  of  beauty, 
and  lives  amid  its  forms  and  its  suggestions.  The  soul  of 
mechanism  is  animate  with  poetry.  The  ideals  first  exist  in 
the  mind  of  the  mechanic,  and  are  next  transferred  to  wood 
and  metal,  and  then  are  applied  under  the  laws  of  time  and 
space  and  fluids,  and  at  length  are  invested  with  a  perpetual 
life  of  motion  that  finds  its  type  in  the  revolving  spheres  of 
the  lieavenly  world ;  and  tell  me,  can  these  things  be  so  and 
not  awaken  all  the  capacities  of  his  nature  to  the  pleasures  of 
culture  and  refinement  and  sensation  ?  The  social  life  of  our 
time  is  pervaded  by  the  sesthetics  of  the  mechanic  arts.  The 
eye,  the  sense,  the  soul,  of  the  state  finds  a  school  larger  and 
freer  than  municipalities  ever  founded,  so  long  as  men,  women, 
and  children  throng  their  way  to  the  splendid  machine,  gaze 


148  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

upon  its  unwonted  style,  its  Gothic  strength,  its  columnar 
supports,  witness  the  balances  of  its  action,  the  awful  and 
mysterious  silence  with  which  it  works,  the  ideal  of  propor- 
tion that  makes  it  "  the  glass  of  fashion  and  the  mould  of 
form,"  and  retire  with  plaudits  for  its  architect  and  with 
blessings  on  his  head.  And  if  you  follow  out  the  thought, 
and  apply  it  to  the  endless  diversities  of  mechanism,  and 
consider  how  extended  the  subdivision  of  this  labor  and  art 
becomes,  and  how  it  individualizes  the  man  and  starts  his 
nascent  tastes,  —  and  how  it  unfolds  on  another  plane  and  in 
another  grade,  and  produces  a  Powers,  a  Story,  a  Clevenger,  a 
Ball,  a  Hosmer,  —  I  cannot  believe  that  you  will  hesitate  to 
reckon  this  field  of  study  as  a  part  of  the  higher  culture  that 
places  upon  this  age  a  brighter  coronet  than  any  that  was 
ever  worn  by  mediaeval  kings.  These  arts  impart  to  our 
country  and  to  our  generation  the  qualities  of  an  epic  age. 
The  English  traveller  spoke  the  truth  who  returned  home 
after  his  tour  in  America,  and  published  his  declaration  that, 
far  from  being  destitute  of  the  poetic  element,  our  country  is 
itself  one  grand  national  poem.  The  spirit  of  tliat  poem  is 
beyond  every  Oriental  example.  It  is  not  content  to  float 
lazily  in  sharp-nosed  gondolas  to  the  music  of  "  flutes  and 
soft  recorders,"  but  it  asserts  a  loftier  mission,  —  it  breathes 
through  all  the  arts  at  home,  and  utters  itself  from  our 
"  Flying  Clouds  "  and  "  Howling  Winds  "  and  all  other 
clipper  ships  of  whatsoever  name  over  the  zones  of  the 
earth. 

And  thus,  approaching  the  manly  arts  wdiich  your  association 
represents,  and  in  my  brief  hour  only  by  allusion  touching,  not 
tracing,  their  mysterious  origin  and  their  unrecorded  growth, 
their  effect  in  developing  the  resources  of  the  earth,  their 
relations  to  the  liberty  and  the  progress  of  man,  and  their 
connection  with  the  popular  genius  and  the  popular  educa- 
tion, I  know  not  how  better  to  express,  in  a  few  words,  their 
beginning,  life,  and  results,  than  by  quoting  the  lines  of  a 
charming  poetess :  — 


BEFORE  THE   CHARITABLE   MECHANIC   ASSOCIATION.        149 

"  There  walks  a  spirit  o'er  the  peopled  eartli  ; 
Secret  his  progress  is,  unknown  his  birth : 
Where'er  he  turns  the  human  brute  awakes, 
And  roused  to  better  life  liis  sordid  hut  forsakes ; 
He  thinks,  he  reasons,  glows  with  pnrer  fires, 
Feels  finer  wants,  and  burns  with  new  desires. 
Obedient  nature  follows  where  he  leads,  • — 
The  steaming  marsh  is  changed  to  fruitful  meads  ; 
Then  from  its  bed  is  drawn  the  ponderous  ore. 
Then  commerce  pours  her  gifts  on  every  shore ; 
Then  kindles  fancy,  then  expands  the  heart. 
Then  blow  the  flowers  of  genius  and  of  art." 

Gentlemen,  I  conclude  as  I  began,  by  felicitating  yon  over 
the  present  condition  of  your  association,  and  by  adding  my 
appreciation  to  that  which  you  must  have  of  your  position  in 
the  great  confederacy  of  arms  and  of  arts.  Your  exhibition 
represents  the  power  of  New  England  in  war  and  in  peace. 
The  mechanics  of  Massachusetts  bore  a  leading  part  in  the 
opening  scenes  of  the  recent  struggle.  This  is  well  illustrated 
in  what  General  Butler  has  told  me,  —  that  when,  in  the  dark 
days  of  the  memorable  April  which  shut  off  Washington  and 
the  good  President  from  communication  with  the  country,  he 
was  on  liis  way  with  one  of  our  regiments  to  the  relief  of  the 
capital,  and  at  Annapolis  found  the  only  remaining  locomotive 
dismembered  by  rebel  hands,  he  inquired  of  his  men  whether 
any  of  them  could  restore  it ;  upon  which  a  half-dozen  stepped 
forth  from  the  ranks,  saying  that  they  had  helped  build  that 
engine  in  one  of  the  shops  of  Massachusetts  and  they  could 
put  it  together  again ;  scarcely  sooner  said  than  done,  and  the 
Massachusetts  machine  speedily  took  a  thousand  Massachu- 
setts bayonets  and  Massachusetts  hearts  into  Pennsylvania 
Avenue,  and  saved  the  Government  from  the  abyss  which 
was  already  yawning  to  receive  it.  This  patriotic  and  effec- 
tive example  was  sustained  by  the  producing  classes  of  the 
State  throughout  the  war,  alike  here  at  home  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  supplies  and  by  the  gallantry  of  her  serried  files  in  the 
field.  And  now,  when  martial  scenes  have  disappeared,  the 
same  high  duty  rests  upon  the  people  of  the  Commonwealth, 


150  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER    II.    BULLOCK. 

and  the  same  lofty  triumph  will  reward  them.  This  pros- 
perity and  happiness  among  ourselves,  this  influence,  this 
credit,  this  renown  in  all  our  relations  with  the  country  and 
the  world,  plead  trumpet-tongued  that  these  arts,  without 
which  there  can  be  no  sceptre  for  us,  may  be  developed  and 
extended  until  they  shall  diffuse  their  benignity  over  all 
states  and  over  all  ages.  Happy  are  you  in  the  privilege  of 
enjoying  so  conspicuous  a  share  in  advancing  the  civilization 
and  the  power  of  your  native  laud. 


SPEECH 

at  a  mass  meeting  in  mechanics'  hall,  in  worcester,  feb.  10,  1866, 
called  to  consider  what  action  shall  be  taken  by  the  city 
of  worcester  to  commemorate  the  service  of  citizens  who  lost 
their  lives  in  the  war  for  the  union. 

Mr.  Mayor  and  Fellow-Citizens  : 

I  SCARCELY  think  it  prudent  in  me  or  kind  towards  you 
that  I  should  step  aside  this  evening  from  the  presence  of 
other  duties  that  have  left  me  no  hour  to  weigh  a  thought 
worthy  of  your  occasion  and  your  object.  You  will  therefore 
accord  to  me  acquittal,  if,  after  having  made  the  journey 
solely  to  redeem  a  promise  to  be  present,  I  make  my  words 
as  brief  as  the  purpose  of  the  meeting  is  simple. 

The  subject  of  your  deliberations  transcends  the  limitations 
and  the  possibilities  of  the  time.  Within  a  few  moments  of 
mutual  exhortation  we  are  compelled  to  compress  a  contem- 
plation of  events,  results,  and  duties  whicli  are  sufficient  for 
an  ordinary  generation.  Think  how  great  they  are.  They 
comprise  the  preservation  of  the  nation  and  the  ark  of  its 
covenant, — the  extinguishment  of  the  first  and  the  last  great 
American  rebellion, — the  emancipation  of  four  millions  of 
the  children  of  God,  —  the  setting  of  our  ensign  on  every 
continent  and  every  sea,  foremost  and  highest  forevermore, 
—  and  now  some  inadequate  yet  cordial  tribute  to  tliose,  our 
own,  who  by  their  arms  have  achieved  the  work,  and  by  their 
blood  have  sealed  it  till  the  earth  shall  give  up  its  dead. 

It  is  not  new,  the  building  of  monuments.  That  is  ancient 
as  the  instincts  of  human  nature,  and  antedates  the  historic 


152  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

periods.  Such  memorials  cover  the  earth,  and  have  become 
the  hindmarks  of  traditions  and  annals.  History  is  full  of 
the  questions  that  relate  to  tliem  ;  poetry  reproduces  them  in 
new  beauty  ;  and  the  fame  of  heroes  breaks  in  immortal 
lustre  from  the  cloud  and  mystery  that  hangs  about  them. 
But  it  is  the  olorv  of  monumental  structures  that  the  men 
and  the  events  they  commemorate  are  by  this  instrumentality 
made  to  live  on  after  the  symbols  have  crumbled  back  to 
dust.  The  names  and  the  deeds  of  public  crises,  which 
otherwise  might  fade  and  become  uncertain,  take  a  new  life 
from  these  inscriptions,  they  thus  become  fixed  in  the  heart 
of  the  world,  and  survive  ever  after.  They  who  fell  at 
Thermopylae  —  are  they  not  this  day  better  known,  and  will 
they  not  always  be  better  known,  for  the  memorial  inscrip- 
tion of  Simonides,  though  the  material  letters  have  long 
since  passed  away  ?  '  That  high  occasion  is  as  fresh  and  as 
inspiring  now,  after  the  lapse  of  two  thousand  five  hundred 
years,  as  when  the  renowned  Greek  laid  his  inscription 
there.  The  people  who  are  capable  of  living  through  great 
eras,  like  that  from  which  we  have  just  emerged,  with- 
out raising  some  tablet,  some  shaft,  some  memorial,  grand 
as  the  battle  and  the  victory,  prove  themselves  incapable  of 
enduring  and  patriotic  virtue. 

The  recent  war  has  taken  from  our  streets,  our  shops,  our 
dwellings,  two  hundred  and  fifty  souls,  the  fiower  of  our 
homes,  forever.  In  the  dew  of  their  youth,  or  in  the  prime 
of  their  manhood,  they  laid  down  tlieir  lives  for  a  cause. 
Let  us  set  apart  something  from  our  prosperity  to  commem- 
orate the  victory  of  the  cause. 

Let  him  who  talks  largely  his  belief  in  the  destiny  of 
democratic  representative  government  now  render  his  trib- 
ute to  those  who  had  the  courage  of  their  opinions  and 
carried  them  down  to  untimely  graves. 

Let  him  who  has  spoken  anti-slavery  years  in  and  out, 
safely  at  liome,  now  relax  the  strings  of  his  heart  and  his 
purse,  that  both  may  open  in  the  presence  of  the  entire  de- 


SPEECH  AT  A  MASS  MEETING  IN  WORCESTER.     153 

structiou  of  slavery,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  ghastly  death 
of  his  townsmen  and  brothers,  who  buried  it  with  their 
own  bodies. 

Let  him  who  cheers  the  flag  on  all  festal  days  now  con- 
tribute the  income  of  one  day  in  the  year,  to  inscribe 
conspicuously  in  the  public  square  the  names  of  those  who 
bore  proudly  that  ensign  in  every  battle  from  the  Potomac 
to  the  warm  bayous,  who  felt  it  fanning  their  cheeks  as  they 
died,  and  gave  it  back  triumphant  to  their  countrymen  for  a 
thousand  years  to  come. 

Let  him  who  looks  complacently  on  the  attitude  of  his 
country  in  tlie  group  of  all  the  nationalities  of  the  globe  — 
that  attitude  never  so  majestic  as  now  —  remember  them,  the 
young  and  the  brave,  who  stood  fearless  before  the  combined 
menaces  of  France  and  England,  whose  present  disappoint- 
ment wails  around  their  headboards. 

Let  him  —  if  one  such  there  be  in  this  city  of  humanity 
and  patriotism  —  who  recollects  that  he  gave  during  the  war 
as  little  as  possible  save  the  cold  shoulder  to  his  country,  make 
henceforth  his  amnesty  with  the  shades  of  the  departed,  and 
drop  the  repentant  tear  on  the  monument  his  own  hands 
shall  help  to  raise. 

Mr.  Mayor,  I  am  not  master  of  that  propriety  which 
would  enable  me  to  speak  fitly  and  personally  of  the  slain 
of  our  city.  Of  the  two  hundred  and  twenty-three  non- 
commissioned officers  and  privates,  I  knew  many ;  of  the 
twenty-six  commissioned  officers,  nearly  all.  I  cannot  without 
exposure  to  misconstruction  indulge  in  discrimination.  Yet 
especially  one,  in  our  joint  civil  service,  had  made  me  his 
friend.  Parker  called  to  give  me  his  hand  when  he  first 
went  forth  at  the  early  reverberation  from  Fort  Sumter,  and 
each  time  afterwards.  Li  the  later  interviews  I  learned 
more  than  all  I  knew  before,  of  the  field,  from  him.  As  you 
thought  then,  he  need  not  have  gone  ;  high  honors  at  home 
were  in  store  for  him  ;  he  ought  not  to  have  died,  —  for  there 
was  unfortunate  practice.     But  all  the  brighter  the  crown  of 


154  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   II.   BULLOCK. 

his  service.  His  last  imcomplainiug  words  were  told  me, 
the  dirge  which  heralded  his  returning  body  through  this 
broad  avenue  has  long  since  subsided,  and  it  only  remains 
for  me  that  I  may  unite  with  his  fellow  mechanics  in  carv- 
ing a  wreath  around  his  name.  And  so  I  pass  by  the  sons 
of  my  neighbors  who  have  left  them,  and  mention  one  other 
less  known  to  most  of  you.  When  the  Twenty-fifth  Eegi- 
rnent,  after  its  re-enlistment,  came  home  on  a  furlough,  in 
the  absence  of  the  commander-in-chief  it  was  assigned  to 
me,  as  a  Worcester  Representative,  to  receive  them  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall.  I  recall  Captain  O'Neil,  at  the  head  of  an  Irish 
company,  even  then  numbering  seventy  men,  of  whom  all 
but  four  had  re-enlisted.  His  martial  bearing  impressed  me. 
His  muscle  was  hard,  his  face  was  bronzed,  and  the  wliole 
contour  had  the  handsomeness  of  a  picture.  I  forced  him 
upon  the  platform,  and  insisted  on  introducing  him  to  the 
floor  and  the  galleries,  that  received  him  with  cheers  and 
waving  white.  The  next  time  I  heard  of  him,  he  had  gone. 
When  he  received  the  stroke  which  was  to  be  speedily  fatal, 
he  exclaimed,  "  Hold  the  flag  over  me,  and  tell  my  mother 
I  died  for  my  country."  And  thus  that  sacrifice  was  quickly 
completed.  Tell  me,  ye  who  read  the  light  romance,  and 
ye  who  seek  inspiration  in  classic  ages  gone  by,  what  have 
you  learned  more  noble  or  more  touching  than  that  ? 

Ah,  my  friends,  there  is  something  in  the  death  of  soldiers, 
in  the  battles  or  prisons  or  the  diseases  of  war,  that  comes 
over  our  sensibilities  with  mingled  pathos  and  mystery  and 
awe.  I  know  that  death  is  the  same  thing  in  all  times  and 
places  ;  and  yet  there  is  no  other  death  like  that  of  the 
soldier.  Wherever  brave  boys  offer  up  their  life  amid  the 
din  and  tumult  of  a  battle  over  a  righteous  cause,  I  feel  sure 
the  Heavenly  Father  sends  special  angels  there.  Your  vision 
and  mine  cannot  pass  beyond  the  horizon  of  the  revealed 
and  the  known  ;  and  still,  while  I  linger  over  such  scenes 
with  a  baffled  knowledge,  and  cannot  penetrate  the  veil,  a 
voice  whispers  to  me  that  there  is  a  particular  mission  of 


SPEECH   AT   A  MASS   MEETING   IN    WOKCESTER.  155 

mercy,  and  a  grace  and  peace  for  those  who  do  battle  for  the 
right  and  die  in  the  cause  of  Freedom  and  of  God.  All 
these,  our  martyrs,  have  gone  away  in  a  manner  others  do 
not  go.  As  we  who  stayed  at  home  and  live  at  home  trace 
their  flight,  may  we  not  break  this  monotony  of  ours  with 
the  utterance, — 

"I  see  them  walking  in  an  air  of  glory 
Whose  light  doth  trample  on  my  days,  — 
My  days,  which  are  at  best  hut  dull  and  hoary; 
Mere  glimmerings  and  decays." 

For  this  cause  and  this  victory,  for  these  men  and  these 
actions,  the  monument  should  go  up.  For  myself,  I  would 
have  it  altogether  and  exclusively  a  soldiers'  monument.  I 
would  not  have  it  connected  with  any  other  institution  or 
purpose  or  utility  whatsoever.  As  their  deeds  on  fields  re- 
mote from  us  were  all  their  own,  as  tlieir  death  was  unlike 
that  which  ours  shall  be,  so  the  tribute  accorded  to  them 
should  be  isolated  utterly  from  our  ordinary  thoughts  and 
pursuits.  As  they  separated  themselves  from  the  studies  and 
avocations  at  home  for  a  higher  life  and  a  grander  death,  so 
should  the  memorial  of  them  be  set  apart  from  the  jostle  and 
distraction  of  the  town;  their  monument  should  be  ideal, 
separate,  conspicuous.  It  should  be  such,  and  so  located, 
that  their  kindred  and  friends  and  all  the  people  may  ap- 
proach it,  and  behold  it,  and  behold  nothing  else.  ISTo  shade 
should  obscure  it ;  the  sun  should  visit  it  with  the  circling 
hours,  and  the  winds  play  perpetual  music  over  its  solemn 
inscriptions.  Such,  I  trust,  it  shall  rise.  It  shall  cheer  and 
animate  the  sorrowing.  It  shall  inspire  all  citizens  with 
thoughts  of  country,  and  shall  quicken  the  currents  of  youth- 
ful blood.  It  shall  be  a  fit  memorial  of  every  soldier  son 
departed.     The  words  of  Milton  shall  be  fulfilled  :  — 

"  Thither  shall  all  the  valiant  youth  resort, 
And  from  his  memory  inflame  their  youthful  breasts 
To  matchless  valor  and  adventures  high; 
The  vii'gins  also  shall  on  feastful  days 
Visit  his  tomb  with  flowers." 


SPEECH 


AT  A  MEETING  OF   ALUMNI   OF   AMHERST   COLLEGE,  JULY   12,   186G.   AT 

AMHERST. 


Mr.  President  and  Brothers  of  Amuerst  College  : 

This  call,  so  cordial  and  fraternal,  before  which  every 
thought  of  official  relation  gives  way  and  disappears,  bids 
my  local  and  academic  loyalty  to  respond  and  unbosom 
itself  in  this  presence  of  the  comrades  and  friends  of  the 
earlier  and  later  days.  It  may  be  well  enough  that  you 
should  take  whatever  pleasure  can  come  from  a  gratified 
sentiment  of  college  relationship,  or  personal  friendship, 
in  offering  welcome  to  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  State 
coming  hither  out  of  the  alumni  of  our  common  alma 
mater ;  but  for  me,  and  to-day,  the  only  thought  is  that  of 
gratulation,  that  we  hail  and  salute  her  in  the  period  of 
her  largest  prosperity,  —  when  endowments  from  Williston, 
Walker,  and  all  the  others  make  her  independent,  —  when 
a  good  personal  administration  makes  her  attractive, — 
when  her  many  sous  prove  faithful  to  virtue  and  to  her. 
Never  before  has  she  been  able  to  welcome  the  return  of 
Commencement  day  with  such  queenly  dignity  as  now, 
when  she  beholds  her  influence  spreading  like  the  waters  of 
irriiration  over  the  globe,  when  she  is  herself  no  longer 
a  public  suppliant,  when  she  receives  the  sacred  kiss  from  a 
thousand  living  and  grateful  lives. 

It  has  been  my  opportunity  to  observe  the  stately  rise  of 
this  College.  The  class  of  1836  have  been  witnesses  of 
her  ascending   fortunes.     After  the  State,  speaking   through 


SPEECH   AT   MEETING   OF   ALUMNI,   AMHERST   COLLEGE.      157 

the  misdirected  voices  of  the  Legislature,  had  sent  away  tliis 
child  of  its  charter,  not  only  without  the  pittance  which 
was  asked  for,  but-  with  angry  and  reproachful  words,  and 
after  the  people  in  response  to  this  unkindly  conduct  had 
quickly  raised  fifty  thousand  dollars  for  the  institution,  it 
was  my  privilege,  then  a  freshman,  to  co-operate  with  two 
hundred  and  fifty  other  undergraduates  in  lighting  the  can- 
dles of  illumination  at  every  pane  of  every  window  upon  this 
hill,  and  to  stand  with  them  ankle-deep  in  the  snow,  bidding 
all  hail  to  those  lights  that  should  never  go  out;  bidding 
defiance  to  the  Boston  lawyer  who  had  struck  his  cold  and 
poisoned  fangs,  all  uuavailingly,  only  in  the  outer  garments 
of  our  alma  mater.  His  bitterness  of  the  charge  of  "pious 
fraud  "  only  roused  her  resolute  soul  to  that  purpose  of  great 
and  sweet  revenge  which  lay  in  the  Christian  determination 
to  appeal  to  the  hearts  and  to  the  churches  of  New  England, 
and  to  work  on  with  devout  confidence  for  the  good  of  man- 
kind. Some  of  us  boys  of  sixteen  said  then,  if  God  would 
spare  our  lives,  we  would  again  test  the  heart  of  Massachu- 
setts in  the  days  of  our  manhood,  and  would  ask  her  to  reverse 
the  unkind  decree  of  that  day.  And  eight  years  afterwards 
it  was  my  opportunity,  with  my  fellow  alumni,  among 
whom  were  Lord  of  Salem  and  Kellogg  of  Pittsfield,  to  try 
the  question  over  again  in  the  same  House  of  Eepresentatives, 
and  to  witness  the  willing  grant  of  the  Commonwealth  from 
its  treasury  to  our  cause.  That  was  a  day  which  I  shall  ever 
remember.  Then^our  College  stood  for  the  first  time  vindi- 
cated and  triumphant  under  the  august  sanction  of  the  State, — 
her  seal  being  then  added  to  ours ;  her  treasury  then  coming 
to  the  aid  of  ours ;  her  recognition  of  Amherst  in  the  com- 
panionship of  Harvard  being  then  established,  never  after  to 
be  repudiated. 

It  was  my  pleasure  to  communicate  the  tidings  of  this 
act,  so  important  for  Amherst,  to  the  president  of  my  own 
college  days  then  surviving.  I  allude  to  the  late  Dr.  He- 
man  Humphrey,  now  passed  to  the  fellowship  of  the  saints. 


158  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

He  was,  of  all  others,  the  patron  friend  and  defender  of  this 
College.  No  language  which  I  can  command  could  convey  to 
you  the  delight  with  which  he  received  the  intelligence  of 
that  victorious  day.  I  stood  near  him ;  and  his  face,  to  use 
the  expression  of  the  Scripture  of  the  first  martyr,  was  as  if 
it  had  been  the  face  of  an  angel.  Hope  elevated  and  joy  bright- 
ened his  crest.  I  do  not  know  how  others  feel ;  but  if  I  had 
stood  in  that  situation,  I  would  not  have  exchanged  it  for  all 
that  kings  or  people  could  bestow.  I  like  to  associate  the  name 
of  Humphrey  with  all  the  triumphant  days  of  Amherst.  He 
had  left  a  wide  and  prosperous  pastorate  to  come  hither,  suc- 
ceeding the  first  president,  Moore ;  and  he  walked  steadfastly 
with  us  all  through  the  dismal  times,  never  faltering  but  al- 
ways leading  on  to  effulgent  success.  God  was  over  him  and 
with  him.  God  conferred  renown  upon  him  here,  and  out  of 
his  loins  gave  to  our  alumni  those  who  have  since  honored 
the  country.  One  of  these,  the  Hon.  James  Humphrey,  has 
but  recently  left  vacant  by  his  death  a  desk  in  Congress, 
and  has  left  us  all  mourners  of  his  Christian  spirit,  of  his 
pure  virtues  and  manners  that  were  never  corrupted  by  the 
touch  of  public  affairs,  of  his  culture  and  his  talents  that  are 
now  all  lost  to  the  republic.  But  another  son  survives,  the 
Eev.  Dr.  Edward  Humphrey,  who  through  the  recent  war 
has  conducted  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  the  West  to  loy- 
alty and  to  freedom. 

I  could  not  permit  this  occasion  to  pass  without  one  word 
of  tribute  to  the  third  president,  the  late  Dr.  Edward  Hitch- 
cock. His  biography  will  be  written,  and  will  be  among  the 
annals  of  American  letters.  He  was  my  teacher  and  my 
friend,  and  I  knew  him  better  than  all  the  others.  He  was 
the  greatest  genius  of  AVesteru  Massachusetts,  and  he  was  the 
most  modest  that  ever  was  known.  He  had  the  fine  spirit  of 
Henry  Martyn,  all  his  enthusiasm  and  all  his  sweetness.  He 
came  up,  at  the  time  unobserved,  out  of  the  alluvion  of  the 
grand  Connecticut ;  but  he  left  his  great  tracks  after  him, 
more  marked  and  more  enduring  tlian  those  which  he  had 


SPEECH  AT  MEETING   OF  ALUMNI,   AMHERST   COLLEGE.      159 

dug  out  of  the  hidden  strata  of  your  royal  river  and  had 
placed  in  yonder  cabinet,  —  miracle  of  the  past  and  lesson  to 
the  future  of  the  divine  science  which  he  loved  and  served. 
I  rejoice  to-day,  aside  from  all  personal  friendship,  to  recall 
him  among  the  archives  of  the  Commonwealth.  Under  the 
appointment  conferred  upon  liim  by  my  oldest  surviving 
predecessor,  and  my  honored  neighbor  at  home,  Governor 
Lincoln,  he  mapped  out  and  unfolded  the  geology  of  Massa- 
chusetts. In  his  first  noble  volume  and  its  supplements  lie 
joined  his  own  fame  with  the  first  geological  studies  of 
America,  which  were  not  more  official  in  their  character  than 
they  were  perpetual  in  their  renown. 

But  the  crowning  successes  of  our  alma  mater  were  reserved 
for  the  time  of  the  presidency  of  him,  the  Eev.  Dr.  Stearns, 
who  presides  over  these  present  festivities,  and  who  has 
brought  here  the  culture  of  Harvard  and  the  cornered  hat  of 
Oxford.  I  like  these,  both  of  them ;  and  I  know  that  I  but 
speak  the  impulses  which  are  mounting  for  expression  from 
your  own  lips,  when  I  say  that  we  greet  him  in  his  official 
chair  to-day  because  we  esteem,  honor,  and  love  him  for  his 
own  accomplished  virtues,  and  for  all  that  he  is  doing  on  this 
high  field  of  learning.  In  his  time  the  College  enjoys  in 
reality  all  that  any  ideal  could  hold  out  or  express,  and  his 
is  the  enthusiasm  and  genius  which  shall  connect  the  still 
higher  ideal  of  our  aspirations  into  the  most  certain  and 
practical  achievement. 

And  now,  Mr.  President  and  friends  of  Amherst,  I  am 
before  you  in  official  relations,  not  to  speak  the  words  of 
banishment  which  were  uttered  against  you  more  than  thirty 
years  ago  from  the  State  House,  and  which  have  long  since 
become  obsolete,  but  to  bid  you  welcome  to  the  heart  and  the 
hearthstone  of  Massachusetts,  that  is  the  patron  of  piety  and 
learning.  I  come  before  you  especially,  as  one  of  your  own 
number,  to  unite  with  you  in  laying  whatever  measure  of 
success  or  distinction  we  may  have  achieved  upon  the  graves 
of  these  departed  teachers,  and  at  the  feet  of  the  living. 


IGO  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   IT.    BULLOCK. 

Above  all,  I  come  to  relieve  the  din  of  public  life  by  the 
sound  of  this  chapel  bell ;  to  bathe  fevered  temples  in  the 
holy  atmosphere  that  comes  from  yonder  mountain  range  and 
pervades  these  halls  ;  to  search  for  solace  among  the  dewdrops 
that  have  sweetened  this  classic  valley  and  have  refreshed 
two  thousand  students  on  their  toiling  way  to  immortality. 

I  behold  this  College  in  the  prime  of  her  usefulness  and 
fame.  Her  sons  are  abroad  over  the  earth,  —  wherever  the 
Church  has  posted  its  sentinels,  wherever  the  State' has  chosen 
a  jTuardian  or  an  advocate,  wherever  the  veil  of  human  woe 
can  be  lifted,  wherever  the  lot  of  humanity  can  take  fresh 
felicity  from  the  administration  of  education  and  religion.  I 
behold  this  institution  green  to-day  with  the  laurel  of  war, 
planting  her  own  banner  by  the  side  of  the  banner  of  her 
country,  and  pointing  proudly  to  the  services  and  the  deaths 
of  her  sons  who  have  united  the  two  upon  a  hundred  crimson 
fields.  I  meet  her  alumni  here  all  eager  to  reinforce  the 
securities  of  the  union  of  States,  to  repair  the  desolation  of 
the  American  Zion,  to  place  the  imprint  of  our  alma  mater 
beneath  every  good  word  and  work,  whether  at  the  hustings 
or  in  the  court  room,  whether  in  the  churches  or  in  the  halls 
of  learning  or  in  the  national  councils.  I  give  my  heart  back 
to  her  this  day,  and  only  wish  that  a  tliousaudth  part  of  her 
reward  may  be  mine. 

I  meet  here  also  my  associates,  the  Trustees.  One  of  these, 
and  only  one,  the  Eev.  Dr.  Vaill,  appeared  before  me  in  the 
same  capacity  thirty  years  ago,  when  I  came  here  an  utter 
stranger,  not  knowing  an  inmate  of  the  College.  Others  have 
since  come  to  the  Board  from  the  body  of  our  alumni,  fresh 
in  youth  or  manhood,  strengthened  and  adorned  by  all  that 
their  profession  and  art  and  culture  could  add  to  native 
genius  and  youthful  study.  Tlie  Legislature,  at  its  recent 
session,  supplied  the  place  left  vacant  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  of 
blessed  memory,  with  a  new  ally,  —  one  who,  though  not  of 
the  alumni,  brings  to  our  support  an  influence  and  a  power 
which  only  modern  America  has  appreciated  and  understood, 


SPEECH   AT   MEETING   OF   ALUMNI,   AMHERST   COLLEGE.      161 

an  influence  and  a  power  that  reaches  "  across  the  continent," 
—  Mr.  Samuel  Bowles,  our  colleague  and  our  friend.  Into 
the  hands  of  these,  whose  term  covers  the  period  of  a  genera- 
tion of  men,  and  to  the  Divine  Head  of  all  our  fortunes,  I  ask 
you  to  unite  with  me  in  committing  our  beloved  College,  with 
hope  and  faith  and  courage. 


11 


FOURTH   OF  JULY   ORATION 

delivered  at  springfield,  mass.,  1867. 

Fellow-Citizens  of  Springfield: 

In  no  year  before,  since  the  achievement  of  independence, 
has  this  day  been  publicly  celebrated  in  so  few  places,  and  in 
no  year  before  ought  it  to  have  been  commemorated  in  so 
many  as  now.  Your  voluntary  public  spirit  makes  yours, 
to-day,  one  of  the  exceptional  communities.  It  is  creditable 
that  you  thus  mark  your  appreciation  of  the  historical  lessons 
and  duties  of  this  particular  year. 

And  where  else  could  this  exception  better  occur  than 
here,  in  the  city  of  Springfield  ?  Now  two  hundred  and 
thirty-one  years  old,  incorporated  when  all  of  Massachusetts 
westward  was  an  unincorporate  wilderness,  associated  forty 
years  later  with  those  heroic  romances  of  the  border  in  which 
the  stout  old  founders  of  this  hamlet  by  their  wits  and  their 
valor  prevailed  over  the  aborigines,  bound  to  the  cause  of  the 
Revolution  by  the  hearts  and  the  arms  of  its  best  and  bravest 
men,  conspicuous  in  the  first  and  last  insurrection  under  our 
State  Constitution  which  ended  in  the  triumph  of  law  and 
order  over  anarchy,  religiously  faithful  according  to  its  con- 
victions in  the  second  war  with  Great  Britain,  early  among 
the  foremost  in  the  last  great  contest  and  the  last  great  con- 
quest of  American  unity  over  separatism, — just,  benevolent, 
progressive,  as  I  believe,  in  all  the  periods,  wliether  of  peace 
or  of  war,  Springfield  is  surely  entitled  to  color  the  observance 
of  a  national  holiday  with  the  tints  of  her  own  history. 


FOURTH   OF   JULY   ORATION.  163 

Another  fact  of  your  situation  commands  my  mention. 
Eemoved  one  hundred  miles  from  the  easterly  and  half  that 
distance  from  the  southerly  gateway  of  ocean  commerce, — 
only  second  in  any  sense,  and  in  many  respects  first,  among 
the  communities  of  this  long  alluvial  valley,  —  your  town  is 
peculiarly  the  representative  of  the  class  which,  ninety  years 
ago,  led  the  way  to  independence.  The  historian  of  the 
United  States,  in  his  last  volume,  richest  and  best  of  all,  has 
characterized  the  action  at  Saratoga  as  the  battle  of  the  hus- 
bandmen, in  which  men  of  the  valley  of  Virginia,  of  New 
York,  and  of  New  England  fought  together  with  one  spirit 
for  a  common  cause.  We  may  go  one  step  farther.  The 
whole  of  the  Eevolution  was  largely  a  war  of  the  husband- 
men. In  the  hearts  of  the  yeomanry  the  Eevolution  took  its 
inceptive  fires  and  found  its  steady  endurance  and  support. 
From  the  head-waters  to  the  mouth  of  the  central  river  of 
New  England,  rich  in  all  its  intervals  and  slopes,  your  town 
is  the  capital  of  the  husbandmen.  The  unity  of  that  stock 
has  been  best  preserved  and  developed  upon  this  alluvium, 
and  the  story  and  the  moral  of  the  Eevolution  ought  to  be 
longest  treasured  in  its  descent  and  blood.  To-day  all  those 
traditions  and  lessons  are  most  fitly  contemplated  in  this 
place,  in  holiday  celebration,  beneath  these  elms  of  the  valley, 
which  have  been  the  companions  of  tlie  generations  and  the 
witnesses  of  the  periods. 

I  have  said  tliat,  if  others  neglect  the  day,  you  do  well  to 
observe  it  in  thought  of  the  particular  lessons  of  this  time. 
They  are  peculiarly  lessons  of  this  time.  Ours  is  a  history 
of  growths.  If,  for  example,  you  take  France,  which  may 
be  regarded  as  at  present  the  foremost  nation  in  power  after 
our  own,  or  if,  for  a  smaller  scale,  you  take  the  wretched 
and  pitiable  nation  of  Mexico,  and  compare  them  with  the 
United  States,  they  seem  rather  to  be  historically  represented 
by  the  casualties  of  volcanic  eruption  than  by  those  regular 
and  steady  developments  which  we  term  natural  processes. 
Altogether  different  is  our  own  situation  in  the  intelliLrible 


164  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

line  of  events.  No  man  on  horseback  has  carved  out  by  his 
sword  any  one  of  our  eras.  Our  historical  harvests  have  all 
come  from  the  planted  seed  and  germ,  and  not  out  of  any 
accident.  The  order  of  providence,  of  nature,  and  of  develop- 
ment is  so  perspicuous  in  our  annals  tliat  we  may  take  our 
station  at  any  point  in  the  narrative,  and  see  each  lesson, 
understand  it,  and  establish  it  in  our  hearts.  Thus,  at  the 
end  of  these  last  seven  years  as  distinctly  as  at  the  end  of 
the  seven  years  of  the  Eevolution,  there  are  instructions,  clear 
as  human  voices,  which  it  is  easy  to  apprehend  and  which  it 
is  a  duty  to  heed.  The  late  conflict,  whose  results  we  are 
now  adjusting  and  bringing  into  unity  for  future  empire,  in 
its  comparison  with  all  our  former  struggles,  I  designate  as 
the  war  of  the  vindication.  It  has  vindicated,  established, 
and  fixed  that  which  the  wise  patriots  had  thought  before. 
It  has  brouglit  into  practical  and  imperial  result  all  that  our 
own  best  idealism  had  conceived  before.  I  judge  it  to  be  the 
primary  thing  we  have  learned  from  tlie  recent  war  of  vindi- 
cation, that  the  sovereignty  of  the  nation  dominates  over  the 
sovereignty  of  the  States.  It  has  required  the  civil  experi- 
ence of  almost  a  century  to  try  that  question,  and  only  an 
organic  war,  blazing  over  the  States,  could  have  settled  it. 
Out  of  the  struggle  of  the  colonies  for  independence,  out  of 
the  deep  trials  of  the  period  of  the  Confederation,  after  the 
lapse  of  seventy  years  of  the  Constitution,  the  consummation 
has  come  at  last,  but  not  until  now.  It  needed  the  chymic 
flame  of  this  hottest  of  wars  to  clear  American  nationality  of 
the  clogs  which  had  impeded  it  since  the  first  start ;  to  burn 
away  the  limitations  which  the  Confederation  and  tlie  Con- 
stitution had  partially  denied  in  theory,  but  had  generally 
conceded  in  practice ;  and  to  set  this  Western  -unity  above 
provincialities  and  restrictions.  You  cannot  fail  to  think 
how  to  reacli  this  achievement  we  have  had  to  conquer  the 
instincts  of  the  national  beginning  and  the  prejudices  of  the 
national  growth.  For  these  have  been  against  it  down  to 
this  time. 


FOURTH  OF  JULY  ORATION.  165 

It  is  an  anomalous  fact  that,  of  all  the  considerable  nations 
now  existing,  ours  is  the  only  one  which  has  lived  from  the 
beoinnina  under  a  written  constitution.  That  constitutional 
period  would  be  short  for  the  Old  World,  but  is  long  for  the 
New.  But  the  seeds  of  American  nationality  lie  further  back 
than  that.  The  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Confedera- 
tion, the  Constitution,  do  not  tell  the  whole  story.  Prior  to 
all  of  them  were  the  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  settlement,  of 
mutual  colonial  approaches  and  affiliations,  of  border  wars,  of 
the  coming  of  common  provincialities.  These  were  preparing 
us  for  the  necessities  of  union,  but  did  not  provide  for  it,  as 
they  could  not  foresee  the  mode  of  attaining  it.  That  came 
afterward  in  defiance  of  all  which  had  preceded. 

So  that,  when  the  Eevolution  came,  it  was  despite  the 
colonial  individualisms  which  had  prevailed  through  four 
generations.  That  military  union  of  the  colonies  was  for  a 
present  necessity  of  defence,  but  did  not,  for  it  could  not, 
appreciate  the  wants  of  the  next  generation  for  government 
and  empire.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  grand  as 
a  war-cry,  but  was  no  bond  of  imperial  government.  The 
Articles  of  Confederation,  which  followed,  were  framed  in  the 
fear  of  central  power  and  amid  local  jealousies.  All  were 
united  against  the  king,  but  all  were  afraid  of  placing  any- 
where a  common  overshadowing  sovereignty.  The  sparseness 
of  plantation  life  in  the  South  shrank  from  giving  power  to 
the  compactness  of  the  North,  tending  toward  commerce  and 
the  centralization  of  authority  necessary  to  protect  commerce. 
Slavery  there,  even  then,  showed  its  fear  of  freedom  here. 
The  Confederation  proved  only  a  joint-stock  association  liable 
to  dissolution  at  any  moment,  because  it  conferred  no  central 
power  for  raising  taxes  or  soldiers,  for  enforcing  a  treaty 
abroad  or  compelling  a  State  at  home.  It  was  rich  in  pro- 
visions for  individual  liberty,  but  it  was  poverty  itself  as  a 
unit  of  sovereignty.  It  sprung  out  of  provincialism,  and  it 
came  only  to  statism,  and  not  to  nationality.  It  was  a  grand 
stage  of  progress,  but  it  could  not  be  a  consummation. 


166  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

Then,  as  a  consequence,  the  Constitution  came  next.  If 
you  read  Madison's  journal  of  the  convention  which  framed  it, 
you  will  see  how,  through  four  months  of  deliberation,  the 
jealousy  between  freedom  and  slavery,  the  attachment  of  sep- 
aratism, and  the  dread  of  unity  constantly  impeded  and 
nearly  defeated  the  last  and  only  hope  of  one  constitutional 
government.  Even  the  little  pocket  State  of  Delaware  threat- 
ened to  break  up  the  deliberations,  and  to  appeal  to  some 
foreign  sword  for  protection  against  sister  States.  By  a  won- 
der of  wisdom,  scarcely  below  a  miracle,  the  Government 
whose  banner  floats  over  us  to-day  was  agreed  upon ;  and  by 
another  marvel,  which  only  the  transcendent  genius  of  Ham- 
ilton and  Madison  could  have  achieved,  it  was  confirmed  by 
the  people.  It  is  the  only  written  constitutional  government  of 
a  great  nation  worthy  of  mention  in  all  the  M'orld  at  this  time. 
Its  greatest  apparent  weakness  was  in  its  forbearance  to  del- 
egate the  power  of  the  States  to  the  central  sovereignty.  We 
have  learned  that  in  the  late  war.  The  necessity  of  that  for- 
bearance was  inevitable.  The  jealousy  of  the  small  States 
relative  to  the  large,  —  the  complications  and  the  animosities 
of  the  sections,  —  slavery,  the  touchstone  of  all  trouble  in 
America  from  1620  until  now,  —  these  compelled  the  great 
omissions  in  the  Constitution. 

Those  omissions  were  concentred  in  the  lack  of  an  ex- 
pressed authority  of  the  central  unity  over  the  separate  parts. 
According]}^,  from  the  commencement,  while  Washington  was 
the  first  President,  and  Adams  was  the  second,  even  thus 
early,  the  centrifugal  powers  of  this  Government  began  their 
motion  and  effect.  All  action,  all  tendencies,  moved  from 
the  centre  toward  the  several  States.  Jefferson  helped  on 
the  tendency,  even  before  he  had  got  home  from  France. 
Madison  was  caught  by  it ;  and  the  champion  of  the  Con- 
stitution gave  to  it  the  most  enfeebling  construction  by  the 
Virginia  resolutions  of  '98.  Those  resolutions  have  been, 
next  to  African  slavery,  the  cause  of  our  war.  When,  long 
afterward,  Webster,  in  reply  to  Ilayne,  endeavored  to  state 


FOURTH  OF  JULY  ORATION.  ,  167 

the  only  coustriiction  of  the  Constitution  under  which  the 
Union  could  survive,  Madison,  then  an  old  man,  explained 
away  the  resolutions  of  '98  ;  but  it  was  too  late,  the  mischief 
had  begun  its  work.  The  school,  of  which  Hayne  was  put 
forth  as  first  modern  preceptor,  but  which  Calhoun  reorgan- 
ized and  kept  in  the  ascendant  in  the  politics  of  the  country 
for  thirty  years,  outlived  the  demonstrations  of  Webster, 
the  denunciations  of  Clay,  and  the  invectives  of  Adams. 
It  was  the  school  of  nullification,  of  secession,  of  setting  at 
defiance  the  central  Government  because  it  could  not  by  its 
terms  enforce  its  decrees.  The  envious  world  beyond  the 
flood  took  up  the  cry  of  federal  weakness  in  America  with 
delight.  The  wish  of  one  half  of  Europe  and  the  fear  of  the 
other  half  said  that  the  American  Union  contained  the  ele- 
ments of  disunion  and  of  several  ultimate  commonwealths. 
That  thought  was  common  abroad,  and  not  by  any  means 
uncommon  here  at  home.  And  though  Hayne  and  Calhoun 
had  passed  away,  their  theory  and  construction  of  this  Gov- 
ernment remained,  and  took  animate  form,  and  found  artic- 
ulate expression  in  Buchanan ;  who,  in  the  expiring  hours  of 
1860,  opened  the  war  of  solution  and  vindication  by  promul- 
gating to  the  world,  once  more  and  for  the  last  time,  that  the 
national  sovereignty  could  not  compel  the  sovereignty  of  the 
States.  That  was  his  last  legacy  of  statesmanship ;  those 
were  his  parting  words,  as  he  passed  from  the  capital  to  his 
eternal  retreat.  He  closed  the  doors  of  the  old  scliool  forever  ; 
and  it  became  the  lot  of  Abraham  Lincoln  to  open  the  doors 
of  the  new. 

And  now,  fellow-citizens,  after  these  seven  years  of  the 
mingled  strife  of  opinions  and  of  arms,  we  have  come  to  the 
first  opportunity  of  gratitude  and  of  joy  for  the  establishment 
beyond  all  cavil  or  question  of  the  central  power  of  the  Union, 
of  the  sovereignty  of  the  unity  over  its  pafts,  of  the  oneness 
and  indestructibility  of  American  nationality.  That  has  been 
an  open  question  before.  The  people  of  Europe  and  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States  were  in  doubt  upon  this  question 


168  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

before.  But  the  question  has  now  been  settled  for  the  first 
time,  and  for  the  coming  centuries.  It  never  could  have 
been  settled  until  the  disputants  at  the  South  should,  after 
the  ordeal  of  fire  and  blood,  acknowledge  it  to  be  settled. 
That  time  has  come.  They  who  resisted  the  idea  of  superior 
central  power,  by  a  war  of  words  for  seventy  years,  and  by  a 
war  of  arms  for  four  years,  which  seemed  longer  than  all  the 
seventy  before,  agree  with  us  in  accepting  trial  of  battle  as 
tlie  finality.  Tliey  enter  with  us  upon  reconstruction  with 
acknowledgment  of  the  Federal  authority  ;  disputed  before,  but 
conceded  now ;  claimed  by  Hamilton  and  denied  by  Calhoun, 
demonstrated  by  Webster  and  surrendered  by  Buchanan, 
but  established  now  for  all  time  to  come  by  the  hearts  and 
the  arms  of  the  people.  Nothing  in  human  history  exceeds 
in  grandeur  the  settlement  of  this  disputed  question.  It 
proves  that  the  silence  of  the  Constitution,  which  has  been 
accounted  all  over  the  world  as  its  weakness,  is  its  strength ; 
and  that  whatever  shall  be  the  number  of  the  States  between 
the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  they  shall  live  and  rule  under 
one  common  authority  and  under  one  common  flag. 

A  second  benefit  we  have  derived  from  this  war,  which 
three  generations  of  peace  had  failed  to  secure,  and  which  ap- 
parently many  generations  more  of  peace  would  fail  to  give. 
I  mean  the  acknowledgment  of  the  equality  of  men,  and 
their  riyht  to  enfranchisement.  We  started  in  the  career  of 
nationalism  with  demanding  of  the  crown  the  equal  lights 
of  mankind ;  but  having  achieved  a  national  independence 
under  that  masfical  tocsin,  we  weakened  and  frittered  tlie 
principle  under  the  suj)posed  necessities  of  the  compromises 
of  the  Constitution.  Madison,  the  guiding  genius  of  the  Con- 
stitution, nobly  denied  the  abstract  right  of  man  to  liold 
property  in  man,  and  kept  its  expression  out  of  the  charter ; 
but  lie  conceded  it  in  disguise,  under  the  fallacious  belief 
that  it  could  not  last  long  as  American  practicality.  In  that 
he  and  his  associates  deceived  themselves,  and  harassed  the 
next  generations.     Slavery,  as  a  part  of  the  social  and  polit- 


FOURTH   OF  JULY  ORATION.  169 

ical  organism  of  the  Uuited  States,  became  the  principal 
force  instead  of  the  decreasing  incident  in  the  elections  and 
administrations  of  the  Government.  It  was  kept  under,  as  to 
its  offensive  and  aggressive  forms,  through  the  terms  of  the 
first  four  Presidents ;  but  its  glittering  sword  came  out  of  its 
sheath  during  the  administration  of  the  quiet  Monroe,  and 
under  the  claim  of  national  necessity  pointed  itself  against 
the  heart  of  the  Government,  demanded  its  surrender  and 
got  it.  That  is  the  historical  fact  of  1820.  The  jjacificatory 
and  splendid  patriotism  of  Clay  stood  there,  midway  between 
the  right  and  the  wrong.  He  did  not  yield  to  the  shock,  for 
he  was  too  great  for  that ;  lie  did  not  breast  it  outright,  for 
neither  he  nor  the  people  saw  the  need  of  that.  And  so  the 
emergency  was  glossed  over,  and  the  Government  went  on  as 
before.  Twelve  years  afterward,  Jackson,  in  the  deficiency 
of  his  education,  but  in  the  richness  of  his  instincts,  saw 
through  the  error  of  the  past  and  pointed  out  the  coming 
peril.  He  first  told  this  people  —  after  he  had  suppressed 
the  incipient  rebellion  of  Calhoun  —  that  negro  slavery  would 
be  the  next  and  great  occasion  of  nullification,  secession,  and 
revolt.  Let  us  award  credit  for  the  warning  to  the  soldier 
President.     And  Jackson  was  right. 

How  would  the  final  trial  of  slavery  be  likely  to  come  ? 
Its  predominance  was  now  manifestly  complete,  and  had  been 
complete  from  the  first  inauguration.  It  had  been  quiescent 
under  Washington,  who  was  too  great  for  the  approach  of 
evil ;  it  had  been  in  expectancy  under  Adams  and  Jefferson 
and  Madison ;  it  had  had  its  own  way  under  Monroe,  not 
understood  by  him ;  it  had  kept  out  of  sight  under  the  second 
Adams  and  Jackson;  and  under  the  succeeding  administrations 
it  had  been  ostensibly  subordinated,  but  in  reality  ascendant 
in  the  politics  of  those  periods. 

Again,  then,  I  ask,  how  would  this  fearful  test  be  likely  to 
meet  us  ?  Surelv  it  must  come  in  some  form  at  last ;  for 
the  whole  past  had  told  us  that.  The  hopefulness  of  some 
had  put  the  heart  of  the  country  for  a  time  at  its  ease.     Of 


170  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   11.    BULLOCK. 

these  was  Henry  Clay,  —  always  greatest  among  orators,  and 
often  greatest  among  statesmen.  He  had  a  theory,  which 
neither  he  nor  anybody  else  could  prove  in  the  presence  of 
millions  of  black  slaves  increasing  quite  as  rapidly  as  white 
freemen,  that  the  African  would  in  time  disappear  from  the 
stage.  From  1820  to  1860,  a  lapse  of  time  that  witnessed  the 
death  of  a  whole  generation,  so  far  as  I  know,  only  one  man 
completely  foresaw  and  foretold  the  event  which  has  now 
become  historical.  That  man  was  John  Quincy  Adams. 
Shortly  before  his  death  he  declared  to  one  who  afterward 
became  the  builder  of  a  new  party,  that  negro  slavery  in  the 
United  States  would  disappear  in  the  next  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury, not  peaceably,  but  by  a  revolutionary  war.  Those  prove 
truthful  words.  As  we  read  all  human  experience  and  all 
providential  disposal  of  human  affairs,  this  institution,  stand- 
ing between  the  people  and  their  peace  and  glory,  never 
would,  never  could,  have  been  abolished  save  by  war. 

The  war  has  not  only  relieved  the  nation  of  the  conflicts  of 
servitude  by  establishing  universal  emancipation,  but  it  has 
given  us  the  assurance  of  a  homogeneous  people  by  establish- 
ing universal  suffrage.  Monarchies  may  exist  with  the  limited 
franchise,  but  in  a  democratic  republic  the  franchise  must  be 
shackled  bv  few  restrictions.  This  result  has  been  now  sub- 
stantially  accomplished,  with  the  general  consent.  Politicians 
may  continue  to  make  their  dalliance  over  whatever  yet  re- 
mains of  this  question ;  but  the  demand  of  the  North  and  the 
acquiescence  of  the  South,  the  moral  sense  of  the  nation  which 
has  been  made  more  keen  by  war,  the  judgment  of  the  world, 
the  visible  tokens  of  the  Divine  will,  all  assure  us  that  this 
organic  reformation  cannot  stop  short  of  absolute  completion. 
It  could  never  have  been  attained  by  the  policies  of  measures 
of  peace.  It  required  the  tramp  of  armies  to  break  down  the 
prejudices  rooted  by  the  vicious  overgrowths  of  two  centuries 
and  twining  around  the  very  body  of  the  Constitution. 

Again,  we  have  learned  from  the  war  of  vindication  that  an 
overrulincr  Providence  has  cruided  us  throufrh  all  the  devious 

o  O  O 


FOURTH  OF  JULY  ORATION.  171 

ways.  The  Supreme  Architect  has  builded  for  us  better  and 
higher  than  we  knew.  I  recognize  the  Divine  Hand  in  the 
parallelism  of  the  war  of  the  Eevolution  with  the  war  of 
Freedom.  In  two  eras  alike,  a  Higher  Power  baffled  the 
temper  and  the  policy  of  the  people.  For  the  space  of  two 
years  after  the  shedding  of  blood  at  Lexington,  it  was  perhaps 
in  the  power  of  Great  Britain  to  have  effected  a  reconciliation 
with  the  colonies  without  conceding  their  independence ;  and 
even  so  late  as  1778,  the  approach  of  commissioners  of  pacifi- 
cation was  deemed  so  seductive  that  it  needed  the  nervous 
words  of  Washington,  Clinton,  and  Morris  to  brace  the  people, 
of  whose  nature  it  is  to  love  tranquillity.  George  the  Third 
was  converted  by  his  Maker  into  a  Pharaoh,  that  America 
might  not  have  a  premature  and  fruitless  peace.  In  the  late 
war  of  enfranchisement,  I  have  not  doubted  that  at  any  time 
within  two  years  after  the  adoption  of  the  first  ordinance  of 
secession  by  South  Carolina  in  December,  18G0,  the  insurgent 
States  could  have  obtained  peace  and  retained  the  system  of 
slavery  unbroken.  There  was  enough  of  division  in  the 
North,  there  had  been  enough  of  defeat  in  the  field,  to  make 
that  result  possible  and  attainable.  But  there  was  a  divinity 
which  shaped  our  ends.  Instead  of  one,  a  score  of  Pliaraohs 
loomed  up  in  defiance,  —  ministers  of  Providence,  —  to  keep 
the  goad  still  stinging  the  North  on  to  freedom. 

If,  before  this  conflict  opened,  there  were  any  who  were 
sceptical  as  to  the  direct  interposition  of  the  Almighty  in  the 
administration  of  human  affairs,  there  ought  to  be  none  such 
at  its  close.  A  deist,  now,  is  beyond  imagination  worse  than 
those  before  the  flood.  Against  our  will  and  despite  our 
plans  the  war  was  made  to  go  on  with  all  that  change  from 
success  to  reverse,  from  reverse  back  again  to  success,  from 
elation  to  depression,  from  depression  to  the  last  desperate 
cry  to  charge  along  the  whole  line,  —  witli  all  that  dreariness 
of  time,  hope  deferred,  and  sickness  of  the  heart  of  a  people, — 
which  have  characterized  most  of  the  organic  reforms  of  the 
human  race.     We  hear  it  said,  that  if  McDowell  in  the  early 


172  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

day  had  pushed  from  Bull  Hun  to  Richmond,  that  if  in  the 
next  season  McClellan  had  flashed  from  Malvern  Hill  into 
Richmond,  peace  would  have  bloomed  with  the  roses  of  'Gl 
or  'G2.  Then,  in  the  language  of  Washington,  it  would  have 
been  "a  peace  of  war."  No,  fellow-citizens,  for  the  work 
would  have  been  unfinished.  We  might  as  well  suppose 
that  after  months  of  torrid  heat  and  vapor,  rolling  vegetable 
life  to  a  scroll,  the  God  of  nature  would  make  it  his  rule  to 
clear  the  air  without  the  agency  of  electric  sublimity  and 
destruction,  as  to  believe  that  the  current  of  national  vice  of 
an  hundred  years  could  be  changed,  and  the  institutions 
rooted  in  the  mercenary  passions  of  three  generations  could 
be  overturned,  without  the  vicissitudes  and  agonies  of  pro- 
tracted war.  We  cannot  be  patriotic  to-day  without  being 
also  devout. 

And  I  am  sure  you  will  not  neglect,  in  these  hours  of 
rejoicing,  to  render  gratitude  for  the  personal  agencies  in 
which  was  invested  the  control  of  the  two  decisive  wars  of 
our  nationality.  In  all  the  great  contests  of  civilization, 
some  leader  has  appeared,  recognized  afterward  as  the  agent 
of  the  epoch.  In  the  American  Revolution  the  man  Avas 
Georo-e  Washington,  in  the  war  of  vindication  the  man 
was  Abraham  Lincoln,  —  raised  up  both,  as  Witherspoon 
said,  for  the  great  purpose.  While  Washington  far  tran- 
scended Lincoln  in  the  majesty  and  dignity  of  personalism, 
which  wins  universal  applause,  his  successor  in  many  par- 
ticulars resembled  him,  and  was  in  all  respects  scarcely 
less  the  personal  necessity  of  his  own  time.  You  must  re- 
member that  distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view,  and 
that  one  hundred  years  hence  it  well  may  be,  and  is  likely 
to  be,  that  Lincoln  will  rise  then  among  the  shades  of  his- 
tory as  Washington  rises  now.  Generally,  in  the  judgment 
of  maidvind,  lapse  of  time  is  needed  for  the  estimate  of  per- 
sons. So  Washington,  as  it  has  seemed  to  me,  was  not 
thoroughly  and  religiously  appreciated  as  an  historical  char- 
acter, even  in  the  United  States,  until  the  echo  of  European 


FOURTH  OF  JULY  ORATION.  173 

eulogy  came  back  to  us  from  the  lips  of  Lord  Brougham, 
And  if  we  may  judge  by  this  standard,  aud  by  the  prefigura- 
tions  of  the  European  press,  Lincohi  is  quite  as  sure  to  take 
the  next  rank  in  the  criticisms  aud  disquisitions  of  the  whole 
Eastern  world  in  time  to  come.  Certainly  this  cannot  fail  to 
happen  if  Lincoln  shall  find  in  the  future  historian  half  so 
generous  a  chronicler  as  Washington  has  found  in  Bancroft. 

At  all  events,  evident  it  is  that  God  raised  up  these  two 
men  for  a  control  and  management  of  the  destinies  of  their 
periods.  The  last  was  as  great,  as  important,  as  characteristic, 
for  his  time  as  the  former  was  for  his  own.  Both  were  essen- 
tial, because  both  had  been  not  only  chosen  by  the  people, 
but  had  been  appointed  from  above.  If  the  first  went  beyond 
the  second  in  the  breadth  and  magnitude  of  his  individual 
scope,  the  second  equalled  him  in  faithfulness  to  his  own 
mission.  As  to  each  of  them,  the  crisis  of  his  appointment 
and  destination  needed  his  own  peculiarities  and  his  own 
powers.  In  Washington  aud  in  Lincoln  alike,  the  qualities 
predominant,  the  qualities  which  determined  their  epochs, 
were  those  of  prudence,  of  caution,  and  of  foresight.  These 
are  not  merits  of  merely  temporary  eclat,  but  they  are  merits 
of  historical  and  enduring  fame.  The  prudence  and  the 
patience  of  both  commanded  the  confidence  of  the  people. 
Washington  was  surpassed  in  brilliancy  by  men  of  his  staff; 
Lincoln  was  exceeded  by  his  civilians  and  generals  in  the 
qualities  attributed  to  genius,  But  both,  equally  the  agents 
of  Divinitv,  were  the  enorossing  figures  of  their  times.  Before 
Washington  the  splendors  of  Greene,  Hamilton,  and  La  Fay- 
ette pale  their  military  and  civic  fires ;  and  before  Lincoln 
the  renown  of  Seward,  Grant,  and  Sherman  takes  a  secondary 
light  and  reflects  back  upon  him  their  own  as  a  borrowed 
flame.  Both  excelled  as  students  and  warriors  in  the  schools 
of  continental  struggles.  Both  were  the  instruments  of  na- 
tional felicity,  and  the  two  will  pass  down  tlie  lengthening 
lines  of  posterity  equal  benefactors,  —  the  one,  the  father  of 
independence ;   the  other,  the  restorer  and  liberator  of  his 


174  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

country.  This  present  Fourth  of  July  solemnizes  their  mutual 
fame,  and  confidently,  tenderly,  and  sacredly  transmits  their 
names  in  fellowship  to  the  future  ages. 

The  consummation  of  the  past  and  the  security  for  the 
future  are  greatly  in  our  own  hands.  We  have  had  an  ideal 
country  before ;  but  henceforth,  if  we  and  our  cliildren  be 
true,  humble,  and  brave,  we  shall  have  the  realization  of  all 
that  was  ideal  before. 

We  have  boasted  heretofore  of  being  the  benevolent  and 
free  republic.  Now  we  are  to  be  such  in  fact.  The  personal 
liberty  of  man,  and  the  freedom  of  the  elective  franchise  to 
all,  are  the  rich  fruit  of  the  war,  and  will  constitute  the 
strength  and  grandeur  of  the  future  republic.  No  other 
country  in  either  hemisphere  can  assert  an  equal  claim ;  no 
other  could  have  attained  to  it  by  peace  or  by  war. 

We  are  to  be  a  unity  of  national  strength  hereafter,  to 
which  all  the  parts  acknowledge  their  subordination.  That 
we  have  talked  of,  but  that  we  have  never  had  before.  We 
are  to  have  it  in  all  the  time  to  come,  as  the  spirits  of  the 
brave  Union  dead,  and  Grant  and  Sheridan  on  the  one  side, 
and  Longstreet  and  Thompson  on  the  other,  among  the  living, 
and  Congress  and  the  people,  support  the  declaration.  We 
are  to  have  it  for  enjoyment,  for  power,  for  glory, —  one 
central  national  authority,  no  longer  to  be  assailed  at  home, 
forever  invincible  from  abroad.  Not  much  longer  have  we  any 
quarrels  to  adjust  among  ourselves.  If  we  have  any  questions 
to  settle  abroad,  we  can  now  afford  to  offer  the  example  of  our 
past  as  the  guaranty  of  our  future,  and  hold  forth  the  flag  of 
the  indivisible  union  of  the  States,  now  strengthened,  as  the 
source  of  inspiration  to  our  sense  of  justice  and  equity,  and 
of  our  confidence  that  we  can  and  will  maintain  the  credit  of 
American  nationality. 

Already  we  survey  the  fields  upon  which  the  patriotic 
energy  of  our  countrymen  now  seeks  diversion  and  employ- 
ment. The  desert  is  overcome,  the  Indian  retreats  as  the 
rail  is  extended,  valleys  bid  welcome  and  the  mountains  are 


FOURTH   OF  JULY    Or.ATION.  175 

obeisant,  and  the  national  pathway  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific  will  shortly  be  completed  and  connect  the  peoples  of 
the  two  shores  of  the  continent.  The  sj^irit  and  the  muscle 
which  conquered  revolt  and  restored  union,  which  rooted  out 
servitude  and  builded  enfranchisement,  will  make  the  States 
of  the  North  American  Union,  present  and  to  come,  one  cita- 
del of  a  common  nation,  one  abode  of  a  common  people,  one 
farm  and  workshop  of  a  common  prosperity  and  happiness. 

Permit  me  to  share  with  you,  of  the  city  of  Springfield,  in 
this  happiness  and  this  renown  which  shall  belong  to  us  all. 
Permit  me  to  rejoice  with  you  that  the  time  of  peace  has 
come,  and  with  it  universal  enfranchisement  and  invincible 
unity.  Henceforth  let  us  fondly  believe  that  for  indepen- 
dence, for  humanity,  for  all  imperial  functions,  the  boundless 
continent  is  ours.  Portland  and  San  Francisco,  Springfield 
and  Omaha,  are  neighbors  in  the  august  fraternity  whose 
banner  we  salute  this  morning.  It  is  M^ell  that  we  salute 
that  banner  here.  It  is  here  that  the  old  traditions  survive, 
and  it  is  here  that  some  of  the  old  blood  remains.  No  other 
spot,  for  local  or  general  history,  can  lay  higher  claim  to  con- 
spicuous rank  in  this  holiday  commemoration.  Here  patriot- 
ism and  humanity  liave  from  the  beginning  found  a  shelter 
and  a  home.  Here  then,  to-day,  in  this  capital  of  the  far- 
stretching  alluvium,  it  is  fit  that  the  descendants  and  repre- 
sentatives of  the  husbandmen  should  assemble  in  patriotic 
purpose.  I  deem  it  high  honor  to  meet  with  you  in  such 
cause  and  memorial  beneatli  these  ancient  sweeping  elms  of 
Hampden,  —  more  affluent  in  traditions,  more  exhilarating, 
grander  by  far  than 

"  Groves  whose  rich  trees  weep  odorous  gums  and  balms. 
Others  whose  fruit,  burnished  with  golden  rind, 
Hang  enviable." 


ADDRESS 

BEFOUE  THE  WORCESTER  AGRICULTURAL  SOCIETY,  SEPT.  17,  1868,  AT  THE 
PRESENTATION  OF  RESOLUTIONS  IN  MEMORY  OF  THE  LATE  LEVI  LIN- 
COLN, EX-GOVERNOR  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH,  AND  FOR  MANY  YEARS 
PRESIDENT    OF    THIS    SOCIETY. 

Mr.  President,  —  In  offering  for  the  consideration  of  tlie 
society  the  resolutions  which  I  hold  in  my  hand  I  almost 
deem  it  unnecessary  to  say  that  he  who  is  the  subject  of  them 
bore  an  active  part,  fifty  years  ago,  in  the  organization  of  this 
institution.  He  was  one  of  its  first  board  of  officers,  under 
his  father,  the  senior  Governor  Lincoln,  as  president.  He 
delivered  the  inauguration  address  before  the  society  at  its 
first  public  exhibition,  forty-nine  years  ago.  Five  years  later 
he  was  chosen  its  president,  and  continued  to  hold  the  office 
without  interruption  for  the  period  of  nearly  thirty  years, 
when  of  his  own  choice  he  retired.  I  propose  his  memory 
to-day,  accompanied  with  no  other  thoughts  or  reflections 
than  such  as  flow  from  the  present  occasion  and  from  his 
relations  to  this  association.  His  career  in  public  life  and 
political  station,  and  all  his  connections  with  other  objects 
and  organizations,  I  pass  over,  and  ask  you  to  remember  him 
as  long  time  the  president  and  at  all  times  the  friend  of 
the  Worcester  Agricultural  Society.  I  offer  the  following 
resolutions  :  — 

Resolved,  by  the  members  of  the  Worcester  Agricultural  Society, 
that  we  share  with  the  general  public  in  deploring  the  decease  of 
Levi  Lincoln  ;  whose  life,  character,  and  reputation  were  cherished 
by  all  the  people  of  this  Commonwealth,  and  were  especially  near 


ADDRESS   IN   MEMOKY   OF   LEVI   LINCOLN.  177 

and  dear  to  his  fellow-citizens  and  neighbors  in  the  city  and  county 
of  his  nativity  and  I'esidence. 

Resolved,  especially,  that  we  desire  to  make  enduring  record  of 
our  appreciation  of  the  service  he  rendered  to  this  society  throu<'h 
the  uninterrupted  period  of  half  a  century,  one  of  its  originators 
and  organizers,  its  first  recording  secretary,  its  president  for  twenty- 
eight  years,  at  all  times  and  in  all  seasons  its  eloquent  advocate, 
constant  contributor,  and  devoted  friend. 

Eesolved,  that  we  hold  out  to  all  our  members,  and  to  all  whom 
our  influence  may  reach,  the  worthy  and  brilliant  example  of  our 
lamented  friend,  as  an  illustration  of  the  honor  and  dignity  which 
may  be  attained,  beyond  all  distinction  of  office  or  station,  by  a 
just  and  pure  life  passed  amid  rural  pursuits  and  in  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  higher  sentiments  of  human  nature. 


e 


Mr.  President,  the  present  season  is  an  eminently  proper 
occasion  for  recalling  to  the  attention  and  gratitude  of  those 
now  living  the  services  of  that  class  of  gentlemen,  of  M'hom 
our  late  townsman  remained  latest  among  us,  who  in  the 
early  years  of  the  present  century  conferred  a  lasting  benefit 
upon  the  whole  community  by  organizing  the  first  agricul- 
tural societies.  I  refer  to  Worcester,  Essex,  and  Hampshire. 
One  of  these  finds  its  own  existence  interwoven  with  the  life 
of  Timothy  Pickering,  and  the  associates  of  his  time  in  the 
East ;  another  cannot  write  its  history  without  contributing 
to  the  biography  of  Governor  Strong,  the  Millses,  the  Bateses, 
and  the  Aliens,  so  well  known  as  the  river  gods  of  the  West- 
ern valley ;  and  the  third,  our  own  society,  in  setting  up  a 
stone  to  mark  the  stage  of  fifty  years,  would  be  guilty  of 
unnatural  neglect  if  it  were  not  to  inscribe  most  prominently 
the  name  of  Governor  Lincoln,  as  its  founder  and  most 
steadfast  patron  and  friend. 

There  are  those  now  present  who  can  bear  witness  to  the 
comprehensive  views  he  took  of  the  whole  field  of  agricul- 
ture, and  tlie  freedom  with  which  he  discussed  them  and 
impressed  them  upon  others.  The  characteristics  of  the  soil 
and  the  best  modern  arts  and  methods  of  developing  and 

12 


178  ADDEESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK, 

improving  them ;  the  rotation  of  crops  and  their  several 
adaptations  to  particular  localities  ;  the  kinds  of  animals 
fitted  to  the  varying  towns  of  this  entire  section  of  the  State, 
and  the  history  of  their  introduction,  crossing,  and  improve- 
ment, —  these  and  kindred  topics  were  quite  at  his  com- 
mand, and  he  treated  them  so  frequently  and  so  well  as  to 
become  the  best  educator  we  have  ever  had  in  the  county 
for  all  that  appertains  to  the  business  of  an  agricultural 
society. 

He  once  gave  me  in  private  conversation  an  historical  ac- 
count of  the  short-horn,  occupying  half  an  hour,  and  fit  to 
have  been  taken  down  by  a  reporter  for  preservation.  If 
there  be  any  man  in  the  State  who  is  better  informed  than 
he  was  upon  this  class  of  subjects,  I  know  not  where  he  may 
be  found.  His  power  of  practical  generalization  was  dis- 
played in  this  field  of  inquiry,  and  he  so  classified  and 
arranged  the  topics  as  to  bring  the  whole  together  into  a 
noble  system  of  organic  husbandry.  We  always  felt,  when 
listening  to  his  talk  upon  these  things  here  and  elsewhere, 
that  he  dignified  what  we  call  agriculture,  and  raised 
our  thoughts  of  it  as  of  something  greater  and  higher 
than  a  mere  mechanical  necessity  for  subsisting  the  human 
family. 

It  must  be  pleasant  to  a  great  many  persons  now  living  to 
remember  this  Worcester  Society  as  it  comes  back  to  them 
from  the  days  of  his  presiding,  and  it  is  no  disparagement  of 
any  of  his  successors  if  some  of  us  cannot  make  the  associa- 
tion seem  quite  the  same  thing  that  it  was  to  us  under  his 
control  and  management.  My  earliest  recollections  of  a  cattle 
show  are  of  coming  hither  as  a  boy,  nearly  forty  miles,  and 
witnessing  the  dignity  and  affability  with  which  he  presided, 
and  the  interest  with  which  he  inspired  all  who  were  around 
him.  Many  of  you  know  how  patient  in  that  relation  he 
was  of  every  detail,  so  that  it  appeared  that  he  could  not 
formerly  have  been  more  painstaking  in  administering  the 
affairs  of  the  Common wealtli  than   afterwards  in  directing 


ADDRESS   IN   MEMORY   OF   LEVI   LINCOLN.  179 

these.  His  hospitality  after  the  labors  of  the  show-day  were 
over,  when  committee-men  assembled  under  his  roof  to  con- 
dense in  the  fellowship  of  the  evening  the  somewhat  diver- 
sified and  perhaps  somewhat  incoherent  lessons  of  the  field 
and  the  pens,  will  long  be  remembered  by  every  one  who 
ever  shared  it.  The  best  farmers  from  distant  towns  went 
away  with  an  enlarged  sense  of  the  elevation  and  importance 
of  their  vocation,  and  felt  encouraged  to  strive  more  stoutly 
in  the  next  year's  competition.  I  make  much  allowance  for 
the  lar^re  increase  in  the  number  of  these  societies  and  the 
consequent  reduction  of  the  power  of  the  old  ones,  —  and 
more  still  for  the  modern  horse-furore  which  carries  all  before 
it,  and  to  which  those  who  would  not  nevertheless  do  yield 
for  the  sake  of  the  receipts,  —  and  yet  even  more  for  the  over- 
shadowing predominance  of  the  modern  mechanic  arts  over 
the  smaller  department  of  agriculture,  —  and  after  all  these 
allowances,  I  have  an  opinion  that  our  friend  could  accom- 
plish more  and  better  results  than  any  man  I  ever  knew,  in 
keeping  up  the  influence  of  an  agricultural  society  upon  the 
base  of  its  original  design. 

You  and  I  know  with  what  reluctance  he  gave  up  his 
opposition  to  the  introduction  of  the  trial  of  the  speed  of 
horses  as  a  prominent  item  in  the  programme  of  our  institu- 
tion ;  for  he  knew,  as  he  once  said  to  me,  that  the  incident 
would  in  due  time  become  the  principal.  Let  us  respect  him 
for  that,  even  while  we  give  way  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  pre- 
diction, which  subordinates  to-day  that  is  assigned  for  the 
cattle  below  to-morrow  wliicli  belongs  to  the  horses.  I  will 
not  raise  the  question  which  of  the  two  we  ought  to  respect 
the  more  highly  in  the  peerage  of  the  race,  whether  it  should 
be  Devon  or  Derby.  That  you  may  answer  each  one  for 
himself.  For  myself,  amid  all  the  excitement  of  cable  de- 
spatches from  the  English  course,  —  announcing  silver  plate 
and  fabulous  wagers  won  or  lost  according  to  the  infinitesimal 
part  of  a  second  of  time  achieved  by  the  fleetest  hoof,  with 
the  name  of  the  progenitor  sire  annexed,  —  I  like  to  repeat 


180  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

what  ]\rr.  Webster,  standing  in  tlie  centre  of  his  herd  at 
Marshfield,  twenty  years  ago,  told  me  the  Duke  of  Devon 
had  said  to  him :  "  Politically  my  domain  may  cease  to  en- 
dure perhaps  sooner  than  I  could  wish ;  but  I  console  my- 
self with  the  reflection  that  my  name  shall  be  respected  so 
long  as  the  noble  race  of  cattle  which  bears  it  shall  continue 
to  exist  in  England." 

The  farmer  of  Marshfield  and  the  farmer  of  Worcester, 
contemporaries  and  friends  in  almost  all  other  thing.s,  were 
assimilated  in  the  possession  and  cultivation  of  this  instinct 
and  taste.  On  the  day  already  referred  to,  when,  with  a  j^arty 
of  friends,  Mr.  Webster  had  perambulated  his  twelve  hundred 
acres  and  had  shown  to  us  his  fields,  his  cattle,  and  his  barn.s, 
we  noticed  the  stable  well  stocked  with  horses  and  carriages, 
and  asked  that  we  might  not  fail  to  see  them.  "  Certainly,"  he 
said,  "  here  are  some  horses,  quite  handsome  and  excellent,  I 
believe,  which  have  been  presented  to  me  by  generous  friends. 
Look  at  them  and  judge.  I  profess  to  know  how  to  build  a 
barn,  and  to  nnderstand  the  best  cow  in  an  hundred,  but  these 
horses  are  a  little  out  of  my  line."  And  you  remember  that,  as 
his  last  days  on  earth  approached,  he  requested  that  he  might 
be  propped  up  in  his  chair  by  the  window,  and  that  his  cattle 
should  be  driven  up  before  him  for  his  last  inspection.  It 
was  a  review,  true  to  nature,  just  prior  to  his  final  departure. 
He  liked  those  faces,  and  turned  his  own  towards  them  with 
a  confidence  which  the  last  hours  of  a  man  make  solemn  and 
worthy  of  respect. 

In  the  exercises  at  yonder  church  in  funeral  honor  to 
Governor  Lincoln,  my  greatly  esteemed  friend,  the  Eev.  Dr. 
Elli.s,  —  who  had  been  long  time  an  intimate  in  the  family, 
and  who,  better  than  most  persons,  was  fitted  to  speak  of 
the  departed,  r— "vvith  his  quick  sagacity  as  to  the  features  of 
urban  and  rural  life,  made  special  mention  of  this  point  in 
the  life  of  the  good  Governor.     He  said  :  — 

"  The  joys  of  his  childhood  were  so  associated  with  the  objects 
and  interests  of  a  farm  that,  to  the  very  cud  of  his  lengtlicned 


ADDKESS   IN    MEMORY   OF   LEVI   LINCOLN.  181 

days,  and  most  so  when  nearest  to  it,  he  found  his  occupation  and 
delight  in  the  same  cherished  pursuits.  A  guest  in  his  deUghtful 
home,  who  had  gone  to  his  rest  at  night  as  in  a  city  mansion, 
would  awake  in  early  morning  to  the  lowing  of  kine  and  the 
cackling  of  fowls.  Looking  from  one  side  of  the  house  he  would 
see  the  beautiful  flower  garden  with  its  conservatory,  and  on  the 
other  the  herd  going  out  to  pasture  and  the  yoked  oxen  to  their 
labor." 

To  me,  living  directly  opposite  liis  residence  and  observing 
for  many  years  his  daily  ways,  this  picture  of  the  Governor 
by  Dr.  Ellis  was  peculiarly  truthful  and  charming.  Looking 
out  from  my  chamber  window  at  an  early  hour  in  the  summer 
mornings,  I  used  to  call  attention  to  the  Governor  emerging 
from  his  dwelling,  a  little  'in  advance  of  the  rest  of  us,  to 
review  his  line  of  Ayrshires  as  they  passed  by  him  to  the 
green  fields  beyond.  His  fondness  and  knowledge  of  good 
stock  found  expression  in  as  choice  words  as  could  be  bestowed 
upon  a  fine  landscape.  In  this  particular  he  was  one  of  the 
pioneers  of  the  present  era  of  taste  and  sentiment  for  the 
higher  grades  of  the  animals  which  is  ennobling  the  people 
of  this  Commonwealth.  From  the  day  of  Edmund  Burke,  — 
who,  amid  the  thickening  of  the  terrible  public  drama  of  that 
time,  found  solace  and  invigoration  among  his  herd  at  Bea- 
consfield,  —  there  has  been  nothing  better  in  the  education 
and  exaltation  of  the  mass  of  the  community  than  is  ex- 
hibited now  in  the  care  and  fondness  bestowed  by  the 
people  of  Massachusetts  upon  the  improved  kinds  of  ani- 
mals. And  I  have  not  met  witli  any  one  who  engaged  in 
this  method  of  promoting  the  general  welfare,  and  making 
the  cultivation  of  live-stock  almost  an  ideal  employment, 
with  more  genuine  sentiment  than  our  departed  friend  and 
president. 

He  was  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  all  the  growths  and 
symbols  of  beauty  in  nature.  Of  course  he  was  a  lover  of 
trees.  I  make  this  one  of  the  tests  of  a  true  and  sympathetic 
man.     In  the  matter  of  our  sensibilities  the  great  poet  has 


182  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

given  undue  precedence  to  sound  over  sight.  I  do  not  know 
but  every  stransrer  to  the  "  concord  of  sweet  sounds  "  should 
be  given  over  to  "  treason,  stratagems,  and  spoils ; "  certainly, 
at  least,  this  rhapsody  of  Shakespeare  on  music,  as  some  one 
has  said,  has  furnished  every  vacant  fiddler  with  something 
to  say  in  defence  of  his  profession.  But  what  do  you  say  of 
a  man  or  woman  who  does  not  warm  under  the  concord  of 
sweet  sights,  —  of  trees  and  tlowers  ?  In  the  lifetime  of  the 
late  Governor  we  were  wont  to  indulge  in  facetiousness  over 
his  position  of  championship  and  antagonism  in  the  behalf  of 
all  standing  trees.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  he  was  never  known 
to  be  willing  that  one  should  be  taken  down  unless  under 
some  authority  almost  equivalent  to  the  exercise  of  the  right 
of  eminent  domain.  He  knew  the  ages  and  could  verify  the 
concentric  rings  of  most  of  the  trees  in  our  neighborhood.  A 
generation  ago  he  boldly  cut  the  finest  private  avenue  of  the 
city  and  planted  his  home  on  it,  —  then  quite  remote  from 
Main  Street,  and  called  Oregon,  —  saving  old  trees  and  plant- 
ing new  ones,  now  old.  As  a  consequence,  in  later  years, 
new-comers  found  the  ash,  the  maple,  and  the  elm  in  the 
centre  of  the  brick  sidewalks ;  the  municipal  authorities  did 
not  like  to  cross  his  feelings,  and  artifice  had  to  be  resorted 
to  in  some  instances  to  clear  the  encumbrance  from  the 
walk.  He  believed  in  front  yards  and  ample  lawns  and 
green  leaves. 

Flowers,  too,  he  appreciated  beyond  most  men,  and  guarded 
them  to  their  tenderest  roots.  There  was  most  excellent  sen- 
timent in  him  for  these,  though  no  overflow  of  sentimentality. 
He  could  not  translate  the  technical  language  of  flowers  like 
Van  Buren,  but  he  enjoyed  and  cultivated  them  as  ministers 
and  agents  in  the  divine  poetry  of  human  life.  I  dwell  upon 
this,  because,_in  my  judgment,  it  ought  to  pass  for  much  in 
the  estimate  of  a  real  country  gentleman.  He  manifested  this 
taste  at  festive  boards,  and,  observing  beautiful  groups  of  vine 
and  blossom  drooping  from  the  stand,  he  would  say  that  it 
must  have  cost  the  gardener  a  pang  to  cut  such  clusters.     He 


ADDRESS   IN    MEMORY   OF   LEVI   LINCOLN.  183 

reminded  me  of  the  late  Mr.  Choate,  who  was  known  to  carry- 
back a  bough  to  the  trunk  from  which  he  had  torn  it,  in  the 
belief,  as  he  said,  that  possibly  there  might  be  some  yearning 
between  the  parent  stock  and  the  disrupted  shoot.  Such 
men,  by  their  natural  sympathies  expressed  in  courtly  words, 
make  the  world  attractive  to  otliers. 

But  trees,  above  all  things,  Governor  Lincoln  believed  in 
and  admired.  He  had  inherited  from  his  birth  in  this  inte- 
rior county  an  appreciation  of  outdoor  life  and  the  manly  and 
healthful  pursuits  of  the  country.  His  fatlier's  house  was 
amid  original  groves.  He  himself  had  been  born  upon  the 
verge  of  the  modern  clearing  and  on  the  margin  of  the  later 
civilization.  By  nature  and  right  he  retained  unto  the  end 
his  love  of  the  rural  scenes  in  which  he  had  been  cradled. 
The  relations  of  his  family  carried  him  backward  to  the  days 
of  Worcester  County  colonization,  and  he  kept  this  memory 
fresh  and  practical.  These  clay  hills  of  Worcester,  unchanged 
since  the  creation,  covered  largely,  until  within  my  recollec- 
tion, with  the  primeval  woods,  —  the  sublime  grouping  of  the 
Monadnock  and  the  Wachusett  and  the  smaller  ranges  and 
spurs  intervening  between  them  and  us,  —  the  spring  verdure 
on  the  plains,  deepened  and  enriched  all  the  way  for  forty 
miles  around  with  gleam  of  water  and  graver  shade  of  em- 
bowering forests, —  the  richest  variegations  of  the  autumn 
and  winter,  comprising  the  hues  of  October  and  the  leafless 
branches  of  December,  —  the  wooded  and  icy  galleries  of 
January  and  February,  extending  through  all  the  county  from 
this  town  to  the  White  Hills,  —  the  perennial  banners  of  pine 
and  hemlock  and  fir  that  hang  out  over  all  this  northerly 
circuit,  so  much  observed  and  admired  by  our  fathers, — tliese 
had  for  him  the  sanction  of  the  lords  of  the  soil  of  a  former 
generation,  and  received  his  constant  love  and  respect. 

"  In  such  green  palaces  the  first  kings  reigned, 
Slept  in  their  shades,  and  angels  entertained  ; 
With  such  old  counsellors  they  did  advise, 
And,  by  frequenting  sacred  groves,  grew  wise." 


184  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  Governor  Lincoln  kept  off  old  age  by 
renewing  his  youth  in  sympathy  with  each  recurring  spring 
and  summer.  In  my  last  visit  to  his  chamber,  only  a  short 
time  before  his  death,  he  said  that  until  within  a  year  he  had 
never  thought  or  felt  that  he  was  an  old  man.  And  some  of 
you  must  have  noticed,  as  I  frequently  have  within  the  past 
ten  years,  that  on  public  occasions  any  allusion  to  him  as 
aged  or  venerable  evidently  was  not  relishable  to  him.  Old 
age  in  him  was  not  churlish,  or  querulous,  or  so  unresponsive 
as  with  many  men  at  his  time  of  life.  He  appeared  fond  to 
show  that  he  believed  in  that  age  whose  pillars  are  raised  on 
the  foundations  of  youth.  To  him  this  felicity  came  in  great 
part  from  being  constantly  in  communion  and  intercourse  with 
the  outward  and  visible  world.  He  meant  to  know  what  was 
going  on  to  the  end.  No  person  knew  better  than  he,  every 
year  until  the  last,  what  was  exhibited  here,  and  from  what 
town  and  farm,  and  how  and  by  whom  raised,  and  by  what 
process  brought  into  a  condition  fit  for  this  exhibition  of  the 
wonders  of  the  earth.  He  was,  all  his  life,  awake  and  sensi- 
tive to  the  growth  and  expansion  of  his  country ;  and  true  to 
the  sentiments  which  had  descended  to  him  from  his  ances- 
tors, he  stood  by  his  country's  colors  bravely  through  three 
wars,  and  never  more  gallantly  than  in  the  last.  By  unin- 
termitted  familiarity  with  the  life  of  society,  and  with  the 
ceaseless'  activities  of  the  animal  and  vegetable  kinsirdom,  he 
kept  his  own  being  vital  and  fresh,  as  if  supplied  from  the 
sources  of  perpetual  youth.  Accordingly,  instead  of  trying  to 
think  that  he  was  neglected,  or  that  his  day  had  gone  by,  as 
old  folks  are  too  apt  to  say,  he  knew  better,  and  gratefully 
realized  in  every  day's  experience  that  he  was  in  the  full 
enjoyment  of 

"  That  which  should  accompany  old  age, 
As  honor,  love,  obedience,  troops  of  friends." 

The  last  years  of  his  life  were  marked  by  something  of  the 
ancient   patriarchal   serenity,   and  would   stand  the  test  of 


ADDRESS  IN   MEMORY   OF   LEVI  LINCOLN.  185 

the  best  sentiment  and  style  of  Cicero's  philosophy  for  old 
age. 

And  thus,  gentlemen  of  the  Worcester  Agricultural  Society, 
as  your  president  drew  nearer  and  nearer  the  goal,  he  illustrated 
that  law  of  our  existence  which  I  have  sometimes  thought,  ac- 
cording to  all  just  conceptions  of  our  human  lot,  is  as  unerring 
as  the  law  of  gravitation,  —  the  rule  of  the  sympathy  and 
affinity  of  man  to  the  earth  wlience  he  sprung  and  to  which 
he  must  return.  Above  all  others,  those  who  are  engaged  in 
the  cultivation  of  the  soil  and  are  in  daily  observation  and 
study  of  the  miracles  of  the  natural  world,  alike  perceive  and 
exemplify  this  law.  So  did  he  in  a  large  and  appreciable 
sense.  The  last  labors  and  the  last  thoughts  of  such  are  in 
tranquil  association  with  the  myriad  lessons  coming  from  this 
common  mother  earth,  to  which  the  mortal  part  of  us  must 
go  back  to  find  its  rest.  Even  under  the  heathen  pliiloso- 
phies  the  advanced  stage  of  human  life  found  its  keener 
pleasures  in  pursuits  relating  to  the  culture  of  the  soil. 
Under  the  Christian  dispensation  this  tie  is  more  bright  and 
vital,  and  vibrates  with  grander  thoughts  and  joys.  The 
higher  aspects  of  the  contemplation  and  cultivation  of  the 
land  break  to  the  gaze  of  the  Christian  agriculturist,  "  as  he 
moves  forward  himself  toward  the  great  crisis  of  his  being, 
catching  an  intelligent  glimpse  of  the  grand  arcana  of  nature 
exhibited  in  the  creative  energy  of  the  terrestrial  elements ; 
the  suggestive  mystery  of  the  quickening  seed  and  the 
sprouting  plant ;  the  resurrection  of  universal  nature  from 
her  wintry  grave." 

And  so  he  died.  A  few  months  after  his  last  visit  to  these 
grounds,  and  in  fond  remembrance  of  the  benefit  and  the 
blessing  he  had  here  learned  and  taught  through  the  long 
time  of  fifty  years,  he  himself  was  "  sown  a  natural  body,  to 
be  raised  a  spiritual  body."  The  analogies  of  growth  and 
ripening  and  decadence  which  had  crowded  on  his  thought  and 
study  for  half  a  century,  followed  him  in  happy  fruition  to  the 
spot  where,  under  his  own  hemlocks  and  amid  the  first  leaves 


186  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   II.   BULLOCK. 

of  June,  we  laid  him  iu  the  cemetery  which  his  eloquence 
had  consecrated  a  generation  before  with  pathos  and  splendor. 
And  so  he  went  away  from  our  presence. 

"  Of  no  disteiiii)er,  of  no  blast,  he  died, 

But  fell  like  autumn  fruit  that  mellowed  long : 
Even  wondered  at  because  he  dropt  no  sooner. 
Fate  seemed  to  wind  him  up  for  fourscore  years  ; 
,     Yet  freshly  ran  he  on  six  winters  more, 
Till,  like  a  clock  worn  out  with  eating  time. 
The  wheels  of  weary  life  at  last  stood  still." 


ADDRESS 

BEFORE  THE  WORCESTER  COUNTY  FREE  INSTITUTE  OP  INDUSTRIAL  SCIENCE, 

NOV.  11,  1868. 

Mr.  President,  —  At  this  stage  of  the  exercises  it  only 
remains  for  me  to  unite  with  others  in  congratulating  the 
friends  of  the  School  of  Industrial  Science  on  having  reached 
the  degree  of  success  which  is  expressed  by  these  ceremonies 
of  inauguration.  Though  the  beneficent  purposes  of  the 
school  are  yet  to  be  accomplished,  the  liberality  and  vigor 
which  have  established  these  material  foundations  and  super- 
structures, ill  accordance  with  plans  so  comprehensive,  are 
a  guaranty  that  no  part  of  the  original  design  shall  fail  for 
want  of  means  or  public  spirit.  In  addition  to  the  endow- 
ment furnished  by  the  original  founder,  the  amount  contrib- 
uted by  others  has  been  rarely  if  ever  equalled  in  this  section 
of  the  country  in  any  similar  undertaking  and  in  an  equal 
period  of  time.  To  the  first  donor,  Mr.  Boyntou,  and  to  all 
those  citizens  who  have  come  forward  to  make  his  donation 
certain  and  successful,  —  of  whom  two,  Mr.  Salisbury  and 
Mr.  Washburn,  ought  to  be  especially  mentioned  and  at  all 
times  remembered,  —  not  only  this  particular  community,  but 
the  people  of  the  whole  Commonwealth,  are  under  lasting 
obligation. 

The  memory  of  great  benefactions  ought  to  be  enduring. 
I  sometimes  think  that  our  familiarity  with  the  quickly  ac- 
cumulated fortunes,  and  the  almost  lavishment  of  benevo- 
lence of  the  last  few  years,  has  made  us  too  insusceptible 
to  the  common  duty  of  gratitude  for  the  munificence  which 


188  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER    II.    BULLOCK. 

abounds  in  our  community.  Some  of  us  remember  with 
what  sensation  it  was  promulgated  over  the  country,  only  a 
little  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  that  Mr.  Abbott  Law- 
rence had  made  a  gift  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  establish 
the  Scientific  School  at  Cambridge.  It  happened  to  me, 
about  that  time,  to  be  at  the  same  hotel  with  liiui  in  the  city 
of  New  York.  It  also  occurred  that  the  President  of  the 
United  States  was  then  present,  on  a  visit  to  the  metropolis. 
An  intelligent  and  public-spirited  citizen  of  Tennessee  came 
to  me  and  said,  "  I  desire  to  be  introduced  to  Mr.  Abbott 
Lawrence,  of  your  State ;  for  I  would  rather  take  the  hand 
that  can  open  with  a  donation  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  in  the 
cause  of  Education,  than  to  shake  hands  with  the  President." 
And  now  here,  in  the  retired  abodes  of  the  rural  County  of 
Worcester,  we  have  three  men,  who  have  not  been  hunted 
out,  but  who  have  come  forth  of  their  own  volition,  each  of 
whom  has  given  for  that  noble  cause  a  much  larger  sum 
than  the  one  I  have  just  mentioned.  In  cordial  sympathy 
with  the  prayer  of  Dr.  Sweetser,  who  opened  the  exercises 
of  consecration  this  morning,  we  ought  to  be  thankful  to 
Him  who  is  the  disposer  not  only  of  events  but  of  the  hearts 
of  men  that  produce  events,  that  we  live  in  a  society  where 
such  things  as  these  are  performed. 

The  institution  which  we  open  for  use  to-day  is  a  stage  in 
advance  of  all  considerable  attempts  which  have  been  hitherto 
made,  in  Massachusetts,  for  the  promotion  of  the  study  of 
what  we  call  the  natural  and  physical  sciences.  The  first  of 
such  efforts  resulted  in  tlie  establishment  of  the  Museum 
of  Comparative  Zoology,  at  Cambridge.  Devoted  to  the  study 
of  the  whole  of  living  existence,  of  all  orders  of  being,  from 
man  through  every  gradation  to  the  feeblest  vital  organism 
that  can  be  discovered,  it  is  a  monument  to  the  interest 
which  the  State  has  manifested  in  one  department  of  tliis 
general  class  of  studies.  It  has  been  endowed  with  half  a 
million  of  dollars,  coming  about  equally  from  the  public  treas- 
ury and  private  citizens.     In  the  hands  of  its  great  master. 


BEFORE   THE    FREE    INSTITUTE    OF    INDUSTRIAL    SCIENCE.    189 

Mr.  Agassiz,  —  I  am  half  inclined  to  call  liini  the  great  magi- 
cian of  nature,  —  it  is  helping  into  world-wide  fame,  not  only 
him,  but  the  Commonwealth  of  his  adoption.  But  in  manj 
particulars  that  is  a  school  of  abstract  study,  as  distinguished 
from  that  which  is  palpably  practical  and  in  immediate 
relation  "with  the  producing  powers  and  capacities  of  men. 
The  only  two  other  leading  institutions  we  have  in  tlie 
domain  of  physical  science  —  the  Scientific  School  of  Harvard 
University  and  the  Institute  of  Technology  at  Boston  — 
have  aimed  to  supply  this  deficiency  by  bringing  what  are 
termed  the  useful  arts  into  profound  study  and  direct  appli- 
cation to  the  social  progress  of  our  time.  Of  the  Institute  of 
Technology  I  have  a  high  appreciation.  In  my  judgment  it 
aims  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  this  age  with  a  broader  scope 
than  any  other  institution  that  has  been  established  in  the 
United  States.  Passing  through  its  rooms,  witnessing  the 
facilities  appropriated  to  the  pursuit  of  mathematics,  design, 
and  drawing,  descending  to  the  laboratory  and  beholding  tlie 
young  men  applying  their  own  thought  to  actual  experiment 
with  the  free  use  of  water,  steam,  and  gas-light,  all  the  ele- 
ments and  all  the  apparatus,  any  man  in  the  visit  of  an  hour 
must  be  satisfied  that  an  advanced  position,  not  realized 
before,  has  been  attained  in  the  ever  widening  field  of  edu- 
cation. But  the  school  whose  doors  are  now  thrown  open 
to  .:iwing  free  on  this  eminence  is  designed,  as  I  suppose,  to 
be  devoted,  not  less  than  the  Boston  Institute,  to  the  ele- 
mentary studies  which  precede,  accompany,  and  stimulate 
the  development  of  the  useful  arts,  while  besides  it  com- 
prises the  department  of  practical  mechanism,  which  has  not 
as  yet  been  attached  to  the  former.  That,  I  apprehend,  may 
be  found  to  be  the  right  arm  of  this  institution.  Here  is  a 
building  which  is  dedicated  to  the  pursuit  of  the  wonder- 
working forces  and  agencies  of  mechanic  art,  and  which  is  to 
be  supplied  with  the  conveniences,  and,  so  to  speak,  with 
the  temptations  that  shall  entice  the  thought,  ingenuity, 
taste,  and  aptitude  of  a  young  man  into  acquaintance  with 


190  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXAI^DER   H.   BULLOCK. 

the  processes  which  distinguish,  as  characteristics,  this  me- 
chanical age  in  which  we  live.  Here  we  are  to  have  not 
only  the  abstract  instruction,  —  the  research,  reflection,  and 
contemplation  of  the  student,  ranging  over  all  authorities 
and  theories  in  the  broad  field  of  mechanical  powers  and, 
combinations,  —  but  we  are  to  have  also  the  illustration  at 
hand ;  the  thing  of  beauty,  as  it  lay  in  the  imagination,  is 
to  be  wrouglit  out  before  the  eye  of  the  student  and  by  his 
own  fingers,  —  the  golden  chain  is  here  connecting  theory 
with  practice,  to  find  which  so  many  men  in  all  the  callings 
of  industry  have  passed  years  of  time  between  the  school  of 
their  study  and  the  shop  of  their  success.  He  was  a  wise 
man  who  connected  this  department  with  the  institution ; 
and  he  is  the  generous  benefactor  who  supplies  and  sup- 
ports it, 

Mr.  President,  this  school  comes  to  us  at  the  right  time, 
but  none  too  soon,  in  aid  and  furtherance  of  the  drift  of  our 
civilization.  Intelligence,  acting  through  the  useful  arts,  is 
the  vital  principle  of  modern  civilized  society.  The  mech- 
anician is  now  master  of  the  situation.  Those  communi- 
ties are  now  foremost  in  wealth,  in  culture,  and  in  all  the 
methods  of  moral  influence,  which  are  foremost  in  the  de- 
velopment and  use  of  the  arts.  They  conquer  in  war,  and 
they  rule  in  time  of  peace.  According  to  statements  made 
by  approved  English  writers  several  years  ago,  and  making 
proper  allowance  for  the  increase  since,  the  spinning  ma- 
chinery of  Great  Britain,  tended  perliaps  by  three  or  four 
hundred  thousand  workmen,  produces  more  yarn  than  could 
have  been  produced  by  four  times  the  entire  population  of 
the  kingdom  if  using  the  one-thread  wheel ;  and  the  amount 
of  work  now  performed  by  machinery  in  England  is  proba- 
bly equivalent  to  that  of  the  whole  population  of  the  globe 
if  performed  by  direct  labor.  Striking  and  almost  incredi- 
ble as  such  statements  appear,  they  are  at  this  moment 
measurably  in  process  of  reproduction  in  some  of  the  States 
of  New  England,  and  in  none  more  conspicuously  than  in 


BEFORE   THE   FREE   INSTITUTE   OF   INDUSTRIAL   SCIENCE.    191 

our  own  State.  According  to  the  last  official  tables  of  our 
industry,  published  two  years  since,  the  annual  product  of 
values  in  Massachusetts  was  more  than  seven  hundred  mil- 
lion dollars,  —  or  nearly  two  and  a  half  millions  for  every 
working  day  in  the  year.  I  allow  something  for  the  infla- 
tion of  war  values ;  but  any  excess  from  that  source  is  prob- 
ably not  greater  than  the  amount  of  production  overlooked 
in  making  the  returns,  and  therefore  I  take  the  footing  to 
be  a  fair  one.  Now  I  need  not  say  that  this  quickening  and 
awakening  of  the  industries  —  this  type  of  the  modern  civ- 
ilization—  comes  in  a  great  proportion  from  intelligence 
working  by  machinery.  It  is  the  intellect,  the  reason,  the 
thouo-ht,  the  imagination,  the  taste  of  our  men,  and  of  our 
women  as  weU,  working  through  the  thousand-handed  en- 
gineries and  agencies  which  the  God  of  nature  ha  placed  in 
their  control  and  inspired  them  to  employ.  Our  own  city 
of  Worcester  is  a  remarkable  example  of  the  improvement 
in  these  arts.  Having  had  some  opportunities  for  making 
the  comparison,  I  can  in  all  sincerity  declare  that  I  do  not 
know  the  community  in  this  country  which  leads  a  more 
busy,  intelligent,  and  happy  life.  1  do  not  know  what  the 
papers  of  the  Patent  Office  Department  at  Washington 
might  show,  but  it  has  occurred  to  me  frequently,  reading 
the  current  lists  of  patented  inventions,  that,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  four  or  five  of  the  very  large  cities,  not  another 
in  the  United  States  receives  in  the  course  of  a  year  a 
larger  number  of  letters  patent  than  this  inland  town  of 
forty  thousand  souls.  The  genius  of  the  place  seems  in- 
spired for  the  mission  of  the  arts.  The  mind  of  the  popu- 
lation seems  aroused  and  exalted  in  the  pursuit  of  the 
greatest  attainable  improvement  in  the  condition  of  man- 
kind. 

Now,  Mr.  President,  we  have  only  to  take  the  modern  situ- 
ation as  we  find  it, —  a  people  "  pushing  things,"  as  the  phrase 
now  is,  not  so  much  by  arms,  as  by  arts,  —  carrying  their 
conquests  over  the  globe  by  their  wits,  —  and  to  apply  our- 


192       ADDRESSES  OF  ALEXA^'DE1^  II.  BULLOCK. 

selves  to  the  duties  of  furnishing  the  best  education  Avhich 
this  popular  condition  requires.  We  have  reached  a  definite 
and  established  status,  as  a  Commonwealtli,  for  which  specific 
policies  and  adaptations  of  education  must  be  amply  pro- 
vided. And  this  work  of  public  obligation  has  only  begun. 
In  the  five  chartered  literary  colleges  of  the  State  there  are, 
I  suppose,  some  ten  or  twelve  hundred  students.  But  with 
the  exception  of  very  few  who  will  take  to  engineering 
scarcely  any  of  this  large  number  will  apply  and  continue 
their  study  and  culture  in  those  pursuits  to  which  I  have 
alluded,  and  which  constitute  the  texture  and  fabric  of  our 
social  organization  and  power.  The  two  institutions,  which 
I  have  before  mentioned,  are  instructing  probably  less  than 
two  hundred  and  fifty  of  our  young  men.  The  school  which 
we  dedicate  to-day  ought  speedily  to  double  this  number. 
The  want  is  imminent.  The  condition  which  has  produced 
the  want  has  been  advancing  upon  us  with  rapid  stride  dur- 
ing the  last  thirty  years.  The  whole  social  organism,  all  the 
forces  and  activities,  the  spirit  of  our  age,  the  life  of  the 
State,  are  flowing  in  channels  which,  a  generation  ago,  were 
too  feeble  to  awaken  the  public  attention.  But  it  is  so  no 
longer.  The  directors  and  masters  of  education,  the  patrons 
and  benefactors  of  our  time,  have  been  aroused  to  an  appre- 
ciation of  the  necessity.  That  which  is  needed  is  not  an 
underestimating  or  depreciation  of  the  schools  of  classical 
learning.  Theses  and  addresses  have  been  published  in  the 
last  few  years  which  have  discussed  the  benefits  received 
from  the  collecjes  in  a  manner  most  unwise  and  unfair.  And 
in  my  judgment  he  is  not  in  proper  accord  with  the  temper 
of  this  era,  any  more  than  with  the  temper  of  the  past,  who 
misleads  the  intelligence  of  the  people  by  teaching  them  to 
undervalue  the  higher  seminaries  of  classical  learning.  They 
will  still  live  and  prosper,  and  enrich  the  parish,  the  town, 
the  halls  of  justice  and  legislation,  all  the  circles  of  life  and 
all  the  classes  of  mankind,  with  their  myriad-shaded  attain- 
ment and  culture,  their  rich  and  exalted  thought  drawn  from 


BEFORE   THE   FREE   INSTITUTE   OF   INDUSTRIAL   SCIENCE.    193 

the  treasuries  of  past  centuries,  their  flexible  taste,  their  re- 
fined sentiment,  their  trained  virtue,  and  their  imperishable 
religion.  Let  no  man  assail  the  colleges  of  Massachusetts. 
Their  field  is  the  world.  But  there  is  quite  as  much  space 
left  for  the  schools  of  industrial  and  physical  science  as  they 
can  occupy.  We  must  maintain  them  beside  and  in  addi- 
tion to  the  others ;  we  must  support  them  for  the  specialties 
of  our  active,  producing,  consuming  civilization.  In  sym- 
pathy with  the  objects  of  those  other  seminaries  they  should 
have  in  common  with  the  others  the  base  of  the  same  Chris- 
tian religion  which  has  upheld  them ;  the  same  patriotic  tone 
and  purpose  ;  the  same  elementary  studies  which  precede  and 
prepare  for  the  classification  of  men  in  the  various  occupa- 
tions of  life.  Beyond  these  things,  they  are  designed  to 
educate — in  the  literal  signification  of  that  word,  to  lead 
forth,  to  bring  out  —  the  inventive  genius  of  our  young  men. 
From  the  great  invention  of  James  Watt,  which  has  changed 
the  whole  face  of  society,  down  through  the  long  line  of 
inventions  now  innumerable  but  all  working  together  in  the 
vast  complication  of  the  world's  industry,  you  find  compara- 
tively few  which  have  proceeded  from  the  sons  of  univer- 
sities. They  have  cropped  out  from  humble  cottages  and 
secluded  garrets.  There  have  been  in  times  past  no  schools 
for  this  class  of  producers  and  benefactors.  Here  we  have 
the  school  at  length ;  and  all  around  us,  in  the  midst  of  us, 
we  have  the  material  for  crowding  its  seats.  In  the  appli- 
cation of  elementary  mathematics  to  practical  art ;  in  the 
broad  department  of  design  and  drawing ;  in  facilities  for  en- 
abling the  student  to  seize  each  happy  thought  as  it  crosses 
his  imagination,  and  to  chain  it  in  captivity  by  his  own 
senses  and  by  the  agencies  of  fire,  steam,  electricity,  and  all 
the  metals  which  minister  in  his  hands ;  in  mutual  compari- 
sons and  suggestions  among  kindred  minds  laboring  side  by 
side  in  the  common  workshop  of  nature ;  in  the  stimulation 
which  shall  here  be  communicated  to  the  illimitable  capacity 
of  the  mind,  for  modifying,  improving,  enlarging,  intensifying 

13 


194  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

all  discoveries  yet  made  in  the  realm  of  utilized  skill  and 
art ;  in  sending  forth,  one  after  another,  great  and  small,  new 
forms  and  combinations  which  shall  facilitate  and  cheapen 
the  ways  of  life,  from  the  work  of  the  engine  that  traverses 
the  sea,  or  keeps  a  thousand  men  and  women  at  work  under 
a  single  roof,  to  the  humblest  cooking  of  a  cottage  dinner ;  in 
simplifying  and  saving  labor  by  devising  new  modes  of 
dividing  it ;  in  pointing  out  new  uses  of  economy  in  the 
working  operations  of  the  mechanical  forces,  wasting  less  and 
consuming  less  without  profit ;  in  producing  the  most  benign 
effects  on  the  moral  and  social  relations  by  material  means, 
raising  the  standard  of  comfortable  living,  increasing  the 
quantity  of  leisure  time  for  mental  improvement,  and  pro- 
moting the  progress  of  man  in  all  the  fields  of  earthly 
service  and  enjoyment, —  this  school  and  its  associate  schools 
shall  contribute  their  j)art  in  perpetuating  for  our  Common- 
wealth the  respect  and  blessing  of  all  wherever  freedom  and 
intelligence  exist.  And  I  deem  it  a  privilege  to  be  permitted 
to  unite  with  you  in  committing  it  to  its  work,  and  in  com- 
mending it  to  the  patronage  of  our  fellow-citizens  and  to  the 
favor  of  Divine  Providence. 


SPEECH 

AT  A  DINNER  GIVEN  TO  GENERAL  DIX,  UNITED  STATES  MINISTER  TO  FRANCE, 
BY  AMERICANS  AT  PARIS,  IN   1869. 

Mr.  President,  —  It  seems  scarcely  less  than  a  superflu- 
it)'  that  anything  should  be  added  to  the  striking  and  felici- 
tous remarks  which  have  already  expressed  our  purpose  and 
crowned  the  occasion.  And  yet  there  is  nothing  superfluous, 
after  all,  in  saying  once  more  before  we  separate  how  largely 
our  countryman  and  friend,  the  late  Minister,  takes  with  him, 
as  he  sets  his  face  towards  home,  the  absolute  respect  and 
esteem  of  all  Americans  whether  resident  or  transient  on  this 
side  of  the  ocean.  And  certainly  this  is  a  free-will  offering, 
which  never  was  more  justly  merited  by  any  one.  To  that 
executive  capacity  and  straightforwardness  which  marked  his 
labors  in  this  as  in  every  former  field  in  which  we  have 
known  him,  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties  at  this  capital  he 
has  added  a  patience,  courtesy,  and  kindness  towards  his 
many  countrymen  visiting  here,  which  I  am  sure  they  are  all 
ready  to  place  high  among  the  diplomatic  virtues.  I  doubt 
not  vou  will  indulge  me  in  one  other  remark  in  relation  to 
this  gentleman,  —  involving  some  delicacy  indeed  when  ut- 
tered in  his  presence,  but  quite  fit  to  be  introduced  in  the 
general  survey  of  his  character  wliich  we  are  entitled  to  take 
at  this  moment.  For  myself,  the  respect  for  General  Dix, 
which  has  brought  me  to  this  table,  is  not  by  any  means 
diminished  by  what  I  believe  to  be  the  fact,  —  a  fact  possibly 
a  little  more  rare  now  than  at  some  former  periods  among 
public  men,  —  that  he  retires  from  a  prominent  official  life 


196  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

of  twenty-five  years  with  the  power  safely  to  challenge  the 
closest  scrutiny  of  his  conduct  and  without  having  added  to 
his  private  fortune.  "When  such  men  quit  the  pubhc  service 
they  leave  the  country  greatly  in  debt  to  them. 

To  an  assemblage  like  the  present,  —  comprising  Ameri- 
cans who  represent  the  several  characteristic  occupations, 
ranging  all  the  way  between  those  who  are  stationed  here  in 
fixed  commercial  relations  and  the  greater  number  who  are 
here  for  a  longer  or  sliorter  period  in  pursuit  of  general 
knowledge  and  recreation, — a  portion  having  taken  on  some- 
what the  complexion  of  this  local  sky,  while  others  feel  pass- 
ing over  their  cheeks  only  the  color  of  the  sky  they  recently 
parted  from  at  home,  —  but  all  Americans  still,  with  hearts 
beating  true  to  the  anthem  of  their  country  and  eyes  rekind- 
ling at  every  fresh  instance  of  her  progress  and  glory,  —  to 
you  and  me,  one  and  all,  it  is  gratifying  to  believe,  against 
every  idle  rumor  from  whatsoever  quarter  it  may  come,  that 
we  sit  this  evening  in  the  shade  of  a  cordial  and  compacted 
concord  between  France  and  the  United  States.  There  are 
historical  reasons  why  the  Emperor  and  the  President  should 
be  thoughtful  of  the  present  hour.  This  is  to  both  countries 
a  centennial  era.  It  is  not  far  from  this  time  an  hundred 
years  since  the  lilies  of  France  were  borne  on  many  a  field 
of  ours  to  a  conquest  which  gave  to  us  also  an  independent 
flag.  In  all  this  lapse  of  time,  through  the  successive  dy- 
nasties and  administrations,  between  the  land  of  Lafayette 
and  the  land  of  Washinoton,  that  ensicrn  which  the  two  won 
together  has  not  been  ruffled  by  a  serious  adversity.  What- 
ever evil  might  once  or  twice  have  happened,  and  whatever 
evil  some  persons  would  have  had  happen,  none  has  actually 
occurred.  Nor  is  any  likely  to  occur.  No  people  have  better 
reason  than  tlie  French  to  respect  the  history  of  the  Great 
Republic,  and  none  can  better  afford  in  interest  and  senti- 
ment to  welcome  the  fact  that  this  history  has  no  steps 
backward  to  take, —  that  the  North  American  Union  is  at 
length  complete,  and  that  the  name  of  its  President  is  itself 


SPEECH   AT   A   DINNER   GIVEN   TO   GENERAL   DIX.  197 

a  flag.  Then  the  commerce  of  the  two  countries  has  been 
and  must  continue  to  be  a  perpetual  peace-maker  and  peace- 
preserver.  Nor  can  I  deem  it  frivolous  or  merely  senti- 
mental to  speak  of  a  pending  event  as  fit  to  become  another 
guaranty  of  enduring  friendship.  Before  the  most  rapid  of 
our  tourists  now  here  shall  find  their  way  back  to  New  York 
or  Boston,  we  may  expect  that  the  ship,  at  present  taking  on 
board  its  freight  in  a  French  port,  shall  carry  to  our  shore  the 
only  cable  actually  joining  Europe  with  the  United  States. 
And  you  will  pardon  me  if  with  a  local  pride  I  take  to  heart 
what  I  have  read  during  my  present  stay  in  Paris,  the  act  of 
the  government  of  my  State  of  Massachusetts  —  the  only 
sovereignty  that  could  confer  the  boon  —  granting  the  right 
to  land  this  electric  messenger  of  commerce  and  amity  upon 
the  coast  of  Cape  Cod ;  by  the  same  waters  which  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  back  furnished  anchorage  to  that  famous 
little  bark  that  bore  in  its  cabin  the  Constitution  of  the 
future  Eepublic.  Most  assuredly,  Mr.  President,  in  these 
passages  of  history,  in  these  august  events,  —  in  the  steadfast 
union  of  the  king  of  that  early  day  with  our  own  Wash- 
ington, in  the  uninterrupted  friendship  between  both  coun- 
tries during  a  century,  in  the  forthcoming  last  act  which 
is  to  impress  upon  the  very  earth  beneath  the  ocean  the 
signet  seal  of  assurance  for  a  common  fraternity  in  the 
future,  —  in  these  three,  I  am  justified  in  finding  that  real 
triple  alliance,  of  which  the  newspapers  in  the  recent  dis- 
play of  their  prolific  ingenuity  have  not  even  given  us  the 
mention. 

Gentlemen,  it  must  at  times  have  seemed  to  you,  as  it  has 
to  me,  that  here,  far  away  from  home,  and  removed  from  par- 
ticipation in  the  events  and  excitements  transpiring  there,  an 
American  citizen  may  perceive  in  even  more  clear  and  con- 
spicuous light  the  proportions  of  his  country  without  exag- 
geration and  without  diminution.  While  we  remained  there 
we  ourselves  were  actors,  and  our  senses  partook  of  the  con- 
fusion of  the  scenes.    But  the  transparent  medium  of  distance 


198  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   11.    BULLOCK. 

presents  to  our  sight  the  whole  grand  picture,  correctly  limned, 
free  from  the  illusion  of  coloring,  and  without  shackles  upon 
the  outline.  Accordingly,  to  no  portion  of  our  country- 
men do  the  historical  stages  and  growths  and  achievements 
of  their  nation  appear  more  sensibly  or  more  impressively 
than  to  those  of  them  who  are  in  foreign  lands.  Here  quite 
impartially  you  apprehend  in  the  fulness  of  its  meaning,  and 
seize,  in  your  pride  and  affection,  that  recent  lesson  of  a  na- 
tional unity  now  for  the  first  time  achieved  and  established 
beyond  every  possibility  of  disruption  in  the  ages  to  come. 
All  the  antagonisms  which  had  accumulated  for  a  century, 
all  the  oppositions  of  sections  and  climates  and  products,  all 
the  diversities  of  histories  and  races,  which  from  the  begin- 
ning had  imperilled  the  existence  of  a  common  central  sover- 
eignty, have  been  welded  by  the  flames  of  war  into  one  bond 
of  paternal  strength,  which  belts  the  continent,  makes  it  in- 
dissoluble from  vices  within,  and  makes  it  invincible  to  forces 
from  abroad.  No  person  can  realize  better  than  you  that 
there  is  not  an  American  merchant  upon  this  eastern  liemi- 
sphere,  —  in  London,  Paris,  St.  Petersburg,  on  either  side  of 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  —  who  does  not  now  feel,  as  he  could 
never  feel  before,  that  he  represents  a  Government  which  is 
capable  of  protecting  him.  Having  proved  sufficient  to  main- 
tain its  own  integrity  in  the  severest  of  recorded  struggles,  it 
may  henceforth  be  considered  able  to  defend  the  honor  and 
rights  of  its  citizens  in  every  part  of  the  globe.  If  twenty- 
five  millions,  not  without  some  division  among  themselves, 
could  levy  and  subsist  and  animate  the  recent  armies,  to 
wdiich  there  has  been  no  parallel  in  modern  annals,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  say  what  forty  millions  would  accomplish  with 
one  lieart  and  one  mind  pervading  the  whole  area  from  cen- 
tre to  circumference.  Let  us  trust  that  the  day  is  far  distant 
when  such  power  will  be  summoned  to  the  requisition.  There 
is  exemption  from  arms  in  the  existence  of  power.  The  aim 
of  our  country  is  humanity  ;  and  therefore  it  is  progress.  Its 
end  is  justice,  —  in  due  time  and  at  all  hazards  justice  to 


SPEECH   AT    A   DINNER    GIVEN    TO    GENERAL    DIX.  199 

itself  and  justice  to  its  citizens ;   and  therefore  it  will  be 
peace. 

I  should  be  incomplete  in  my  appreciation  of  the  spirit  of 
patriotic  congratulation  which  pervades  this  convention  of 
xA-mericans,  if  I  should  not  unite  with  you  in  hailing  a  late 
event  in  our  country  as  the  last  decisive  harbinger  of  com- 
merce and  empire.  Hitherto  the  geographical  features  of  our 
territory  have  been  in  some  particulars  against  us.  Moun- 
tain ridges  have  stood  in  the  way  of  commercial  unity.  For 
thirty-five  years  we  have  by  railroad  communication  over- 
come these  obstacles,  one  after  another,  until  only  a  single 
field  of  separation  remained  closed  to  the  rapid  exchange  of 
the  agencies  of  civilization  between  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Pacific  States.  Now  at  length,  almost  in  an  unexpected 
hour,  brain  and  muscle  have  conquered  geography,  the  civil 
engineer  has  suddenly  become  master  of  the  situation,  and 
the  song  of  Bishop  Berkeley  is  repeated  by  electric  beat  in 
one  and  the  same  moment  of  civic  ovation  at  Xew  York  and 
San  Francisco.  It  was  formerly  a  custom  at  Venice  to  sol- 
emnize the  espousal  of  the  city  with  the  Adriatic  by  impos- 
ing ceremonies  in  which  the  Doge  and  the  Court  participated. 
How  transcendently  surpassing  tliat  was  the  late  simple  and 
sublime  bridal  of  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  celebrated  mid- 
way in  the  heart  of  our  continent !  Or  rather  perhaps  I  should 
more  properly  say,  it  was  not  so  much  an  espousal  as  it  was 
a  national  coronation.  California  and  Arizona  and  Nevada 
bore  the  mace  of  silver  and  gold  before  the  Queen  of  Nations 
receiving  her  imperial  crown ;  receiving  it  not  from  the  hands 
of  bristling  soldiery,  but  from  the  arm  of  the  engineer  and  the 
laborer,  all  the  hosts  of  agiiculture,  commerce,  and  the  arts, 
in  the  towns  and  upon  the  prairies,  catching  at  the  same  in- 
stant the  signal  of  the  new  era  and  re-echoing  it  from  ocean 
to  ocean.  The  great  work  is  done,  and  hereafter  the  States 
are  a  unit  in  commerce  as  in  government.  Before  my  friend, 
Mr.  Burlingame,  has  half  completed  his  cosmopolitan  mis- 
sion, the  freight  trains  have  been  made  up  at  San  Francisco 


200  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

laden  with  the  product  of  China ;  and  by  the  time  he  shall 
have  unpacked  his  trunks  at  Berlin,  he  may  drink  at  the 
breakfast-table  his  favorite  tea,  which,  thanks  to  the  irrepres- 
sible and  irresistible  Yankees,  has  been  brought  round  to  him 
the  other  way.  All  things  are  changed  by  these  new  comers 
upon  the  world's  arena.  As  in  war  there  is  no  longer  a  pres- 
tige save  to  the  strongest  legions,  so  in  the  cultures  of  peace 
the  fruits  of  success  fall  into  the  arms  of  those  who  get  up 
earliest  in  the  morning  and  carry  the  clearest  heads  and  the 
most  indomitable  energy  through  the  labors  of  the  day.  And 
that  condition  can  only  be  fully  attained  in  a  country  where 
the  personal  liberty  of  the  individual  man,  free  education  and 
voluntary  religion,  a  right  to  enjoy  his  conscience,  his  earn- 
ings, and  an  unrestricted,  unmolested  suffrage  in  the  choice  of 
his  rulers,  expands  his  soul,  exhilarates  his  life,  and  moves 
him  to  enterprise,  adventure,  and  independence.  We  may 
well  rejoice  that  such  is  the  opportunity  and  the  fortune  of 
every  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  that  our  country 
enjoys  a  corresponding  result  to  the  sisterhood  of  nations. 
Whatever  attractions  other  countries  may  present  to  us, 
whatever  objects  of  interest  to  the  senses,  whatever  to  be 
studied  and  admired,  these  in  due  time  pale  before  the  larger 
conception  of  national  justice,  freedom,  and  power,  and  the 
dust  of  our  native  laud  becomes  dearer  to  us  than  all  other 
lands  beside. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  the  spontaneous  impulse  of  my  heart  to 
say  a  word  to  you  about  the  honorable  gentleman  who  suc- 
ceeds General  Dix  as  our  national  representative  at  the  Im- 
perial Court.  My  own  acquaintance  with  ISIr.  Washburne 
probably  antedates  that  which  any  one  of  you  can  recall.  It 
happened  that  thirty  years  ago  the  next  autumn  we  occupied 
rooms  side  by  side  as  students  at  law  in  the  University  at 
Cambridge.  Following  his  profession  in  another  section  of 
the  Union,  he  has  engrafted  upon  the  education  of  the  East 
the  stout  and  manly  qualities  of  the  West.  He  brings  to 
his  high  mission  the  teachings  of  Story,  enriched  by  a  large 


SPEECH    AT    A    DINNER   GIVEN    TO    GENERAL    DIX.  201 

experience  in  public  life.  These  will  stand  by  him  and  sup- 
port him,  as  upon  every  occasion  he  will  stand  by  and  support 
his  country.  Having  the  confidence  of  the  President  and  the 
people,  he  has  already  received  yours  fully  in  advance,  and  I 
could  not  refrain  from  uniting  my  feeble  but  cordial  tribute 
with  the  common  testimonial. 


DEDICATION   OF  THE    SOLDIEES'   MONUMENT 

AT   WORCESTER,   JULY  15,  1874. 

I  CAN  neither  enlarge  nor  diminish  the  lesson  of  the  hour 
inscribed  upon  the  column  before  us.  We  have  assembled  to 
witness  the  erection  of  a  monument  by  the  people  of  Wor- 
cester to  the  memory  of  her  sons  who  died  for  the  union  of 
the  States.  Some  memorial,  fitting  in  design  and  durable  in 
substance,  which  should  perpetuate  the  names  of  the  four 
hundred  citizens  fallen  for  their  country,  and  in  association 
with  them  pay  respect  to  the  larger  number  of  survivors  who 
shared  in  the  same  military  service,  is  not  only  an  appropriate 
offering,  but  an  absolute  necessity  from  our  human  condition. 
The  sense  of  gratitude  may  be  trusted  so  long  as  memory  is 
fresh  or  tradition  is  actively  repeated,  but  these  are  of  uncer- 
tain duration,  and  the  time  of  forgetfulness  comes  only  too 
soon  and  unawares.  The  necessary  thing  is  some  visible  me- 
morial, without  which  a  haze  of  indifference  quickly  gathers 
over  virtuous  deeds,  and  the  names  of  modest  heroes  are 
untimely  lost.  We  readily  believe  with  Cicero  that  but  for 
the  "  Iliad  "  the  same  grave  which  held  the  body  of  Achilles 
would  also  have  entombed  his  name.  But  the  historian  poet 
never  comes  to  commemorate  the  names  of  the  great  body  of 
a  nation's  soldiery,  though  its  existence  was  preserved  by 
their  blood.  Already  a  large  part  of  this  present  assembly 
is  in  need  of  this  monument  for  monitor  and  iustructor. 
Some  of  us  indeed  remember  the  first  general  war  meeting 
held  here  for  half  a  century,  —  on  the  16th  of  April,  1861, — 


DEDICATION   OF   SOLDIERS*   MONUMENT   AT   WORCESTER.     203 

whicli  witnessed  the  fusion  of  all  religions,  all  politics,  all 
nationalities,  under  one  common  sense  of  wrong  and  one 
common  purpose  of  vindication ;  but  that  was  more  than 
thirteen  years  ago,  almost  half  the  time  by  which  we  measure 
a  transitory  generation,  and  the  young  men  of  twenty-one 
to-day,  who  were  then  schoolboys  on  the  grammar  form,  are 
now  learning,  as  students,  that  mighty  series  of  events  into 
which  these  soldiers  were  then  enlisting,  as  actors.  Whilst, 
therefore,  we  stand  around  this  majestic  structure  with  varied 
reflections,  —  of  approbation  for  the  harmonious  effect  with 
which  the  eminent  artist  has  made  each  part  tributary  to  the 
whole  work,  his  statues  and  embossments  merging  from  their 
several  quarters  into  civic  and  martial  union  beneath  the 
column  culminating  in  benignant  victory, — of  a  certain  justi- 
fiable complacency  for  the  unanimity  with  which  the  city  has 
voted  this  token  of  its  own  public  spirit,  —  of  grateful  wel- 
come to  these  remustering  ranks  of  the  survivors,  privates 
who  were  companions  and  ofiicers  who  were  leaders  of  the 
noble  dead,  —  in  high  supremacy  over  all  these  thoughts  our 
gaze  passes  and  fixes  upon  the  names  of  those  translated,  and 
our  heart  returns  to  the  consciousness  that  this  is  their  me- 
morial, its  first  and  last  object  to  transmit  their  names  and 
THEIR  deeds  to  a  remote  posterity. 

The  story  of  the  city  in  the  late  conflict  is  the  history  of 
the  town  of  earlier  days  re-enacted  on  a  larger  scale  and  on 
wider  fields.  In  free  and  brave  communities,  kept  up  to  the 
measure  of  their  fathers  by  a  chivalrous  standard  of  patriotic 
duty,  the  inheritance  of  good  blood  and  inspiring  traditions 
counts  for  an  increasing  degree  of  glory,  each  generation  not 
only  retaining  but  augmenting  the  vigor  of  their  ancestors. 
That  truth  has  been  displayed  in  the  public  conduct  of  the 
people  of  this  town  in  five  historical  wars,  covering,  with 
greater  or  less  intervals,  the  period  of  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  years.  It  is  a  century  since  Lord  Chatham,  whose  name 
will  ever  be  held  sacred  by  the  freemen  of  Massachusetts, 
declared  in  the  House  of  Peers,  with  a  pride  surpassing  the 


204  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

pride  of  argument,  that  tlie  inhabitants  of  New  England  had 
raised,  on  their  own  bottom,  four  regiments  and  taken  Louis- 
burg  from  the  veteran  troops  of  France.  This  provincial 
town,  then  scarcely  advanced  more  than  twenty  years  in  its 
chartered  existence,  was  represented  by  its  full  quota  in  those 
regiments  under  Sir  William  Pepperell,  and  carried  into  that 
siege  names  which  are  still  borne  by  some  of  our  present 
townsmen,  and  are  thus  associated  with  the  victory  celebrated 
by  the  elder  Pitt.  The  scenes  of  resolve  and  preparation, 
which  were  witnessed  here  in  1861,  were  the  enlarged  spec- 
tacle of  the  century  preceding ;  and  the  same  plains  that  were 
covered  with  the  gathering  troops  of  our  day  had  whitened 
with  the  tents  of  our  fathers  under  beat  of  the  drums  of  the 
seven  years'  war,  from  1756  to  1763.  They  awoke  at  that 
time  from  a  brief  rest  on  their  arms  to  actions  from  which 
Great  Britain  bore  away  imperial  renown,  and  our  ancestors 
the  gloom  of  a  depleted  population  and  the  transcendent 
lessons  that  fitted  them  for  independence.  The  Worcester 
men  moved  everywhere  in  that  war,  —  they  were  at  Crown 
Point  and  Fort  William  Henry,  they  were  in  captivity  at 
Montreal  and  in  the  epidemics  of  Lake  George,  they  shared 
with  the  ill-fated  Abercrombie  in  the  defeat  of  Ticonderoga 
and  with  General  Amherst  in  the  joy  of  triumph.  It  is  not 
easy  for  the  fifty  thousand  inhabitants  of  the  present  day  to 
understand  it,  yet  the  recorded  rolls  declare  it,  that  the  rugged 
stock  of  our  predecessors  sent  more  than  five  hundred  men 
into  the  campaigns  of  the  ten  years  ending  with  1756,  out  of 
a  population  not  averaging  through  that  period  more  tlian 
fourteen  hundred.  That  character  heroic,  pervading  the  spirit- 
ual frame  of  the  age  and  working  in  acts  of  valor  in  the  field, 
held  the  town  among  the  foremost  twelve  years  afterwards, 
and  bore  its  citizens  in  triumph  through  another  and  severer 
struggle  of  seven  years'  duration.  When  the  alarm  messenger 
shouted  on  the  green  where  we  are  now  assembled  the  cry  of 
blood  from  Lexington,  at  noon,  on  the  19th  of  April,  1775, 
his  voice  fell  upon  a  people  already  prepared  by  experience 


DEDICATION    OF   SOLDIERS'    MONUMENT   AT   WORCESTER.     205 

and  sacrifice,  by  long  training  of  arms  and  by  inherited  train- 
ing of  the  spirit,  at  a  minute's  warning  to  strike  the  blows  for 
independence ;  and  scarcely  had  cannon  and  bells  ceased  to 
reverberate  over  these  hills  when  two  companies  of  one  hun- 
dred and  ten  men  were  on  their  way  for  Concord  and  Boston. 
It  was  the  tale  of  previous  days.  They  marched  out  with  the 
blessing  of  the  same  pulpit  which  rang  with  its  manly  counsel 
ten  years  before ;  they  bore  the  discipline  and  daring  of  the 
Eangers  of  the  French  war;  they  stepped  to  the  same  fife  and 
drum  which  had  sounded  under  the  walls  of  Louisburg.  I 
will  not  overtax  your  patience  with  the  story  of  Worcester  in 
the  Eevolution.  Happily,  we  consecrate  this  monument  by 
the  side  of  another,^  which,  while  it  commemorates  the  long- 
suffering  heroism  of  a  distinguished  soldier  of  the  Eevolution, 
commemorates  as  well  the  whole  part  which  this  town  bore 
in  that  war,  from  the  first  baptism  in  Middlesex  to  the  final 
coronation  of  virtue  at  Yorktown.  Of  what  kind,  in  service 
and  sacrifice,  that  marble  tells.  He  filled  his  regiment  here, 
the  stout  old  Fifteenth  of  the  Massachusetts  line  in  the  Con- 
tinental, known  and  impressed  upon  history  by  their  inefface- 
able footsteps  at  Saratoga,  in  Ehode  Island,  at  Verplanck's 
Point,  at  Peekskill,  at  Valley  Forge,  —  a  band  whose  conduct 
in  close,  hot  places  was  worthy  of  the  stern  commentary  of 
Napier  or  Cajsar,  descended  long  since  to  the  grave  of  our 
common  lot,  but  after  the  lapse  of  two  generations  represented 
again  as  if  in  reinvested  life  and  repeated  glory  under  the 
colors  of  the  Massachusetts  Fifteenth  of  1861.  Example  is 
the  school  of  mankind. 

On  the  morning  of  the  15th  of  April,  1861,  the  entire  city 
was  awakened  by  the  intelligence  that,  under  the  first  blow 
struck  for  disunion,  the  fiag  of  the  United  States  had  been 
dishonored,  and  before  nightfall  the  murmur  of  the  armories 
and  the  common  speech  of  all  told  of  but  one  mind  and  one 
purpose.  In  a  day  we  had  all  become  republicans,  we  had 
all  become  democrats.      The  annals  of  that  first  week,  its 

1  The  monument  to  Colonel  Timothy  Bigelow. 


206  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   U.   BULLOCK. 

transfusion  of  heart  to  heart,  its  enthusiasm  toned  to  solemn 
calm,  its  days  and  nights  of  ceaseless  preparation,  will  supply 
a  priceless  inheritance  in  any  future  national  exigency.  The 
Light  Infantry,  first  off  and  first  at  the  capital,  the  City 
Guards  and  the  Emmet  Guards  quickly  following,  filled  the 
requisition  for  three  hundred  within  five  days  from  the  first 
peal  of  the  tocsin ;  and  the  next  Sabbath  after  tlie  fall  of 
Sumter  witnessed  that,  by  the  departure  of  its  first  conse- 
crated band,  the  city  had  not  only  met  its  present  duty,  but 
had  covenanted  for  every  future  requirement. 

I  advert  again  to  the  prompt  enlistment  of  the  Emmet 
Guards,  because,  in  my  judgment,  it  was  a  representative  fact 
of  the  highest  importance  to  the  permanent  character  of  our 
Government.  This  company  was,  I  believe,  the  first  organi- 
zation of  foreion  blood  which  marched  into  the  Avar,  though 
it  was  followed  by  others  of  various  nationalities,  all  of  which 
rendered  cordial  service  unto  the  end  by  the  side  of  the  patri- 
otic native-born  of  the  laud.  It  is  not  any  new  boast  that,  in 
the  last  seventy-five  years,  we  have  drawn  to  our  shores  dis- 
cordant elements  from  half  the  globe,  and  magnetized  the 
mass  with  tlie  electric  spark  of  civil  freedom  ;  but  this  is  the 
first  proof  and  illustration,  on  a  national  scale,  that  all  dis- 
tinctions of  blood  sink  before  the  American  flag,  and  tliat  in 
the  hour  of  extreme  peril  unity  of  action  receives  special 
guaranty  and  strength  from  diversities  of  origin.  It  would 
be  impossible  for  me  witliiu  my  limitations  to  attempt  any 
narrative  of  the  subsequent  organization  here  of  companies 
and  regiments  of  which  the  stirring  recollections  have  scarcely 
yet  subsided.  Fortiinately  the  whole  of  this  history  has  been 
collated  and  published  with  honorable  industry  and  impar- 
tiality in  a  memorial  volume,^  which  the  present  generation 
cannot  afford  to  neglect,  and  which  will  surely  be  appreciated 
by  the  next  as  having  a  great  and  rare  value. 

It  is  not  possible  that  I  should  state  the  number  of  men 
who  served  as  soldiers  of  the  city.     In  this  search  I  find  a 

*  History  of  Worcester  in  the  War,  by  A.  P.  Marvin. 


DEDICATION   OF   SOLDIERS'   MONUMENT  AT   WORCESTER.     207 

catalogue  of  their  names  dislocated  and  confused  by  the 
repeated  enlistment  of  the  same  individuals  in  different  regi- 
ments ;  but  I  estimate  their  whole  number  as  not  far  from 
three  thousand.  You  are  to  bear  in  mind  also  that  a  very 
large  number  of  our  citizens  did  service  in  the  lines  of  other 
States.  Many  of  our  own  are  thus  lost  to  our  recognition, 
save  when  in  individual  instances  a  conspicuous  action  or  a 
conspicuous  death  dissolves  the  mystery,  and  brings  back  the 
name  of  a  distant  son  for  memorial  honors  at  home.  The 
records  of  Massachusetts  volunteers  officially  show  that  the 
men  of  Worcester  served  under  the  colors  of  fifty  distinct 
regiments  of  infantry,  five  regiments  of  cavalry,  and  fourteen 
regimental  or  battery  organizations  of  artillery,  all  sent  into 
the  field  with  the  commission  of  John  A.  Andrew,  whose 
name  as  the  great  war-governor  of  Massachusetts  will  forever 
be  associated  with  the  immortal  renown  of  her  soldiers.  Our 
eye  detects  amongst  the  inscriptions  upon  this  monument  the 
names  of  our  sous  fallen  under  the  banners  of  seventeen 
regiments  of  our  sister  States  and  nine  military  organizations 
of  the  General  Government.  Estimating  the  probabilities  of 
the  number  of  our  own  enlisted  by  the  ascertained  number 
of  our  own  dead  in  regiments  without  the  State,  though  we 
can  reach  no  definite  result,  we  know  enough  to  be  able  to 
say  for  a  truth  that  the  blood  of  "Worcester  was  offered  for 
the  defence  of  the  Government  in  more  than  one  hundred 
regiments  and  under  the  flag  of  every  loyal  State.  Marvel- 
lous touchstone  for  us  all  that  conflict  was  !  Between  our- 
selves and  some  of  the  States  of  the  Centre  and  the  West 
there  had  been  for  several  years  more  or  less  of  political  and 
social  difference,  with  a  plenty  of  misapprehension  and  ill 
blood  all  round ;  but  when  the  common  test  came  to  all,  how 
blessed  the  reunion  in  which  they  stood  together  and  learned 
mutual  respect  under  the  same  flag  of  stars  ! 

A  sense  of  repletion  of  material  comes  over  me  when  I 
contemplate  the  extent  and  number  of  the  fields  which  re- 
sounded with  the  tread  of  your  soldiers.     Not  a  page,  but  a 


208  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

volume,  would  furnisli  the  recital.  They  shared  in  the  shift- 
ing lot  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  from  its  clouded  morning 
to  its  brilliant  close,  in  the  marchings  and  fightings  of  the 
Shenandoah,  till  every  open  field  and  copse  became  familiar 
ground ;  in  the  early  welcome  victories  of  Carolina  ;  in  pa- 
tient trials  along  the  Gulf;  in  the  hours  of  turning  fortune 
at  New  Orleans,  Port  Hudson,  and  Vicksburg ;  in  the  tangled 
marches  and  counter-marches  of  Tennessee  ;  in  every  part 
of  the  country,  in  every  great  campaign,  not  excepting  the 
Napoleonic  excursion  of  Sherman  to  the  sea.  It  would  es- 
pecially be  my  pleasing  duty,  if  time  would  permit,  to  make 
particular  mention  of  the  deeds  of  the  Worcester  regiments, 
so  called,  city  and  county,  and  of  a  few  others  in  which  a 
considerable  proportion  of  our  citizens  enlisted,  in  whose 
personnel  you  became  by  observation  and  contact  so  deeply 
interested.  I  will  not,  indeed,  omit  to  give  voice  to  the 
opinion,  to  which  the  oflicial  testimony  of  so  many  of  the 
higher  of&cers  of  the  army  converges,  that  in  labors  and  ac- 
tions performed,  and  in  the  manner  of  performing  them,  they 
ranked  amoncr  the  most  illustrious  of  the  war.  You  will 
permit  me  to  go  one  step  further  on  simply  my  own  author- 
ity, for  I  take  it  there  are  some  things  in  war,  as  in  peace, 
which  the  common  sense  of  a  layman  as  well  as  a  soldier  can 
penetrate.  I  read  the  campaigns  of  the  Spanish  Peninsula, 
so  often  resorted  to  as  a  standard  in  military  comparison,  and 
I  read  the  most  approved  descriptive  accounts  of  the  service 
of  these  rcGfiraents  of  our  own  ;  I  allow  for  some  exaweration 
in  all  the  cases,  and  the  farther  back  in  the  past  they  are,  the 
greater  this  allowance  should  be  ;  and  I  declare  tlie  convic- 
tion, which  every  intelligent  man  is  capable  of  forming,  that 
for  the  moral  and  military  qualities  of  a  manly  heroism,  for 
versatile  labors,  for  marches,  for  trials,  for  tough  fighting,  and 
for  sublime  endurance,  laurel  wreaths  should  fall  around  the 
shaft  now  rising  before  us,  as  profusely  as  Fame  has  ever 
strewn  her  honors  over  the  memory  of  Talavera  or  Salamanca. 
Throughout  the  hostilities  it  was  a  common  complaint  of  the 


DEDICATION   OF   SOLDIERS'   MONUMENT   AT   WORCESTER.     209 

English  critics  that  many  of  our  battles  were  inconclusive. 
We  then  thought  that  we  knew  something  of  the  reason  for 
this,  and  military  writers  across  the  water  are  now  confessing 
that  they  understand  it  as  well.  Conspicuously  a  writer  of 
high  authority  in  the  profession  of  arms,  an  officer  of  the 
British  army,i  who,  in  a  recent  volume,  accounting  for  M-hat 
he  terms  the  "inconclusiveness "  of  our  own  engagements, 
very  justly  says  that  "the  beaten  side  would  not  break  up;" 
and  then  goes  on  remarking  that  "  in  order  to  pursue,  there 
must  be  some  one  to  run  away,  and  to  the  credit  of  Ameri- 
cans, the  ordinary  conditions  of  European  warfare  in  this 
respect  were  usually  absent  from  the  great  battles  fought  [  in 
the  United  States]."  I  dare  say  that  those  who  have  re- 
turned from  the  war  will  appreciate  the  compliment,  no 
doubt  a  just  one,  to  the  valor  of  both  sides  in  our  struggle. 
It  is  nothing  very  new  as  a  discovery.  The  great  Conde, 
when  asked  why  he  did  not  take  Marshal  Turenne,  since  he 
often  came  very  near  to  him,  replied,  J'ai  pcur  qiiil  ne  me 
prennc,  —  "  I  am  afraid  that  Ac  will  take  me."  The  fields  of 
American  valor  are  in  every  State,  and  on  both  sides  of  the 
cause,  and  the  regiments  which  are  largely  represented  in 
yonder  engraved  list  of  the  dead  would  by  any  tribunal  of 
comparison  be  awarded  some  of  the  highest  of  historical 
honors. 

But  we  are  not  just  if  we  measure  the  merit  of  these  lives 
by  battles  alone.  There  was  no  hard  detail  of  labor  that  they 
were  not  equal  to,  no  patient  and  cheerless  sacrifice  they  did 
not  endure,  no  vicissitude  of  prosperous  or  adverse  fortune 
they  did  not  meet  with  serenity.  0  my  friends,  you  may  well 
believe  that  there  is  much  of  a  soldier's  life  which  is  liarder 
than  a  soldier's  death  !  Consider  the  tedium  and  tiredness 
of  preparation  for  action  deferred,  the  nervous  strain  from 
constant  vigil  at  patrol  and  picket,  the  extreme  of  human 
wretchedness  which  comes  from  hunger, —  "  two  ears  of  corn  a 


1^  Colonel  Chesnpy's  "Essays  in  Military  Biography,"  reprinted  from  the 

14 


"  Edinburgh  Review.' 


210  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

day's  ration  "  in  one  of  our  regiments,  "  six  spoonfuls  of  flour 
for  seven  days "  in  another,  —  consider  the  marching  for 
objects  unknown  to  the  ranks,  and  therefore  all  the  harder  to 
endure,  under  the  intensity  of  our  sky,  summer  or  winter, 
until  the  very  heavens  seem  animate  with  cruel  hostility, 
"over  one  thousand  miles  in  the  hottest  season  [the  Thirty- 
fourth],  "  "  marching  without  rations  under  a  Mississippi  sun 
until  some  dropped  dead  in  the  ranks  [the  Thirty-sixth]," 
"  marching,  watching,  starving,  and  fighting  in  the  mazes  of 
Tennessee  [the  Twenty-first],"  —  consider  the  dreariness  of 
exhaustion  which  steals  over  the  senses  like  the  forecasting 
shadows  of  dissolution,  the  days  and  nights  so  lengthened  out 
in  sickness,  the  solemn  and  awful  rest  of  captivity,  the  horrors 
of  prison,  whence  too  often  the  cry  of  sacred  misery  rises  to 
Heaven,  and  where  the  Almiglity  sometimes  abandons  man 
to  the  display  of  his  capacity  for  depravity,  —  and  tell  me 
whether  you  might  not  have  preferred  far  rather  the  quick 
parting  of  soul  and  body  in  the  waters  at  Ball's  Bluff,  amidst 
the  transfiguration  of  victory  on  Lookout  Mountain,  in  the 
battles  of  the  Wilderness,  that  labyrinth  of  quick-passing  fury 
and  quick-coming  glory. 

In  the  erection  of  this  monument  we  symbolize  alike  the 
character  of  the  war  and  the  character  of  tliose  who  engaged 
in  it.  Several  years  ago  a  gentleman  of  military  authority  in 
England  aroused  a  warm  discussion  by  the  assertion  that  a 
villain  makes  none  the  worse  soldier.  That  might  be  true 
in  a  single  instance,  under  a  transitory  passion  for  plunder  or 
booty ;  but  no  sustained  spirit  of  fortitude,  such  as  carries  a 
people  througli  the  changing  tides  of  a  long  war,  can  be 
counted  on,  unless  the  merit  of  the  war  itself  be  high  enough 
to  enlist  in  it  high  personal  characters.  "  A  war,"  says  :Mr. 
Burke,  —  "  a  war  to  preserve  national  independence,  liberty, 
life,  and  honor,  is  a  war  just,  necessary,  manly,  and  pious,  and 
we  are  bound  to  persevere  in  it  by  every  principle,  di\ine  and 
human,  as  long  as  the  system  which  menaces  them  has  an  ex- 
istence."    Tliat  was  precisely  our  case ;  and  our  fellow-citizens, 


DEDICATION   OF   SOLDIERS'    MONUMENT   AT   WORCESTEK.    211 

looking  at  it  with  as  fair  and  impartial  an  eye  as  was 
ever  united  to  a  feeling  heart,  resolved  to  settle  the  question 
at  once  and  for  all  time,  at  whatever  cost  and  sacrifice  the 
struggle  should  find  necessary.  They  left  happy  firesides  for 
the  cheerless  camp,  misled  by  none  of  the  illusive  glare  of 
romance  nor  any  passing  gust  of  madness,  but  thoroughly 
convinced  that  the  government  their  fathers  had  established 
was  now  on  its  test  and  trial,  and  that  the  blood  of  man  must 
be  shed  to  redeem  the  blood  of  man.  Men  who  would  have 
looked  upon  any  other  war  of  the  present  century  as  vanity 
or  as  crime,  carried  their  hearts  and  their  arms  impetuously 
into  this.  In  the  essential  quality  that  marks  great  exemplars 
of  patriotic  virtue  they  were  as  superior  to  the  heroes  of 
Marathon,  one-tenth  part  of  whom  were  slaves  let  loose  to 
fight  the  battles  of  their  masters,  as  the  civil  polity  of  New 
England  transcends  the  imperfect  civilization  of  Greece  or 
Kome.  They  were  citizen-heroes,  bearing  in  one  hand  tlie 
musket,  and  in  the  other  the  violated  Constitution  of  their 
country,  fully  determined  and  sworn,  the  Lord  helping  them, 
to  carry  the  former  to  the  land's  end,  if  need  be,  to  restore 
the  latter  to  acknowledged  supremacy  over  every  inch  of 
territor}'-  which  had  ever  taken  the  national  christening.  I 
allow  they  were  backed  by  tremendous  forces  from  behind,  — 
teeming  industries,  generous  wealth,  the  sympathetic  support 
of  women,  the  most  active  that  any  age  had  witnessed ;  but 
they  had  a  greater  backing  than  these, —  principles  descended 
to  them  in  the  high  phrase  of  Milton,  endeared  to  them 
through  the  depth  and  pathos  of  colonial  and  revolutionary 
traditions,  sounding  through  their  hearts  in  the  undying 
words  of  Adams  and  Warren,  of  Webster  and  Sumner.  In 
sending  such  men  into  the  field  you  sent  out  armed  doctrines 
which  were  invulnerable  and  immortal,  — 

"  Spirits  that  live  throughout, 
Vital  in  every  part,  not  as  frail  man," 

and  wherever  or  in  whatsoever  numbers  their  mortal  repre- 


212  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

sentatives  should  fall,  the  imperishable  principle  was  certain 
to  reappear  in  other  champions  on  the  field,  until  the  wrong 
should  be  forever  vanquished. 

And  who  were  the  three  thousand  that  went  out  from  the 
city  to  bear  aloft  such  a  standard  in  such  a  cause  ?  For  the 
most  part  they  were  the  young  men  of  the  day,  the  flower  of 
the  city's  manhood.  "  Youth  is  genius,"  says  Disraeli.  Un- 
doubtedly youth  is  the  stage  of  the  ideal  inspirations  which 
})lay  a  most  important  part  in  every  decisive  revolution  or 
.social  advancement.  Not  all  age  is  sluggish,  and  not  all 
youth  is  pure  or  progressive;  but  human  nature  has  its  rules, 
and  they  are  not  disturbed  by  the  exceptions.  Advanced 
towards  the  grand  climacteric,  men  are  apt  to  become  affec- 
tionately attached  to  the  seasons  of  peace,  in  which  they  find 
accumulated  profits  and  fixed  pleasures  better  placed  than  in 
war.  The  dead  level  of  civilization,  the  inertia  of  states,  is 
best  administered  by  the  wisdom  of  the  elders  ;  but  when  the 
great  change  comes,  and  obsolete  or  vicious  institutions  are 
to  pass  away  by  violence,  as  too  often  they  must,  younger 
men  have  to  give  and  take  the  blows,  though  old  ones  may 
have  to  be  called  in  again  at  the  close  to  assist  in  the  ad- 
justments. 

The  first  Pitt  was  comparatively  but  a  young  man  when 
he  set  in  motion  the  influences  that  drove  the  old  councillors 
from  around  the  throne,  and  in  a  short  career,  which  reads 
like  a  romance  of  the  imagination,  bore  with  his  own  hand  the 
flag  of  British  conquest  blazing  with  triumph  over  the  two 
hemispheres.  A  few  years  later,  with  the  gout  settling  over 
liis  body  and  the  caprices  of  patrician  dignity  over  his  spirit, 
he  made  the  remark,  which  is  frequently  and  only  partially 
quoted,  that  "  confidence  is  a  plant  of  slow  growth  in  aged 
bosoms  ;  youth  is  the  season  for  credulity."  I  accept  the 
stately  apothegm  for  the  American  situation.  The  young 
men  of  the  United  States  had  prepared  the  way  for  the  con- 
test ;  it  was  the  product  of  their  enthusiasm.  It  was  to  be  a 
contest  of  desperation.     In  the  fulness  of  time  the  day  had 


DEDICATION   OF   SOLDIERS'   MONUMENT   AT   WORCESTER.     213 

come  when  the  Institution,  so  called,  —  the  hoary  monarch  of 
our  political  system,  who 

"  Not  content 
With  fair  equalitj',  fraternal  state, 
Did  arrogate  dominion  undeserved 
Over  his  brethren," — • 

was  to  be  met  in  the  last  demand  and  on  the  last  field,  and 
all  our  habits  of  concession  and  surrender,  confirmed  and 
indurated  for  three  generations,  were  to  be  upturned  and  re-, 
versed,  —  the  day  of  a  social,  elemental  revolution,  in  which 
the  proud  master  should  retire  forever  from  the  scene,  in 
which  many  of  the  relations  of  production  and  commerce 
were  to  be  changed,  and  many  of  the  old  methods  of  business 
and  politics  were  to  be  swept  along  like  stubble  before  a  wild 
northwester. 

And  who  could  be  best  fitted  to  encounter  such  a  situa- 
tion ?  The  sculptor,  Mr.  Eogers,  —  who,  I  may  as  well  say 
to  you,  was  true  as  steel  to  his  country  during  all  the  war, 
a  terror  at  Eome  to  every  inflated  refugee  from  home,  —  has 
placed  before  you  the  answer  to  my  question.  In  full  sym- 
pathy with  his  subject,  he  has  symbolized  each  arm  of  the 
service  in  youthful  figure,  fashioned  in  a  soldier's  grace  and 
strength,  upon  whose  countenance  sits  the  silent  power  of 
hope  and  faith,  whilst  over  them  all  settles  the  indomitable 
will  fitting  their  character  and  their  cause.  Nothing  tliat  is 
tricked,  nothing  that  is  theatrical  or  affected,  lurks  in  these 
ideals.  The  artist  has  met  the  occasion.  The  young  men 
who  filled  the  rolls  of  that  war  must  have  been  surcharged 
with  tlie  electric  fire  of  enthusiasm,  must  have  breathed  in 
the  atmosphere  of  a  credulity  whicli  easily  believes  in  heroic 
and  revolutionary  deeds,  must  have  been  so  unhackneyed  in 
the  ways  of  age  as  from  instinct  to  repel  every  suggestion 
of  compromise,  credulous  enough  to  have  an  easy  faith  in  the 
eternal  union  of  the  States,  credulous  enough  to  snuff  eman- 
cipation in  the  air  before  it  appeared  to  the  sight,  to  behold 
high  above  the  clouds  of  tliat  desperate  day  the  honor  and 


214  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

renown  wliich  would  come  to  those  who  should  strike  the 
chains  from  four  millions  of  men  and  elevate  them  to  the 
peerage  of  American  citizenship ;  or  the  contest  would  have 
broken  down  in  its  second  year.  Such  we  saw  them  muster. 
From  the  shops,  from  the  professions,  from  the  churches, 
from  the  schools  upon  these  surrounding  highlands,  they 
came  with  the  dew  of  youth  upon  their  lips,  and  bravely 
were  sworn  in  for  freedom,  for  their  country  and  their  God. 
0  my  fellow-citizens,  those  were  historical  hours !  The  ex- 
ample of  past  generations  tiugled  in  their  veins,  and  forgotten 
histories  reappeared  in  those  new  young  lives.  The  descen- 
dant of  one  who,  ninety  years  before,  had  stood  with  his 
musket  in  the  first  company  of  martyrs  at  Lexington,  broke 
away  from  the  peace  of  home  to  complete  the  work  of  his 
ancestor,  and  laid  down  his  life  in  the  far-off  prison  which 
horror  forbids  me  to  mention.  How  true  it  is,  as  formulated 
by  Bolingbroke,  that  "  the  virtue  of  one  generation  is  trans- 
fused by  the  magic  of  example  into  several  generations."  I 
recall  the  young  citizen  of  foreign  blood,  hereditary  from 
Waterloo,  who  came  forward  in  that  first  enlistment  to  match 
the  gallantry  of  his  sire,  and  fell  to  his  sleep  at  Cold  Harbor, 
asking  that  his  face  might  be  turned  to  the  enemy  and  the 
banner  of  stars  be  held  over  his  body  in  his  dying  moments. 
The  whole  war  was  unlike  any  other ;  religion,  poetry,  and 
eloquence  had  prepared  the  way,  and  it  came  at  length, 
stirring  to  their  profouudest  depths  the  ideal  elements  of 
national  life;  a  credulous  pride  and  boast  for  the  destiny  of 
the  flag  ;  rich  veins  of  sentiment  never  so  quickened  before ; 
conceptions  of  freedom  such  as  can  fiame  only  in  the  heart 
fresh  from  the  studies  of  boyhood,  and  unchecked  by  the 
cooler  calculations  of  advanced  years. 

As  we  unveil  the  statues  of  the  army  of  the  dead,  our 
justice  and  gratitude  fall  short  of  our  duty  and  desire  if 
we  fail  to  comprehend  the  results  they  achieved.  All  this 
to-day  is  an  empty  pageantry,  if  we  catch  not  the  lesson 
of  the  occasion.     I  take  that  lesson  from  the  engraved  en- 


DEDICATION   OF   SOLDIERS'    MONUMENT   AT   WORCESTER.     215 

tablatures,  where  it  will  be  read  for  ages  to  come  ;  —  they 
achieved  not  only  a  conquest  and  a  peace,  but  they  estab- 
lished the  unity  of  the  republic.  They  accomplished  some- 
thing more.  It  sometimes  happens  that  war,  that  divinity 
as  mysterious  in  action  as  tremendous  in  power,  accom- 
plishes incidentally  purposes  not  inferior  to  the  original  and 
principal  object.  "  War  never  leaves  where  it  found  a  na- 
tion." If  peace  had  come  from  early  surrender  and  not  from 
final  conquest,  from  the  first  day  at  Bull  Run  and  not  from 
the  last  day  at  Appomattox,  then  it  would  have  been,  in  the 
language  of  Washington,  "  a  peace  of  war."  In  the  same 
roar  of  battle  in  whicli  the  union  of  States  was  sealed  to  per- 
petual life,  the  Constitution  gained  its  just  and  final  inter- 
pretation, without  which  any  victory  would  have  been  only 
a  transient  joy.  Very  early  after  the  opening  of  hostilities 
it  became  obvious,  and  by  none  more  quickly  discerned 
than  by  the  ingenuous  and  independent  volunteer,  that  the 
one  thing  absolutely  essential  for  enduring  union  and  peace 
was  the  acknowledgment  of  the  equality  of  all,  and  their 
right  to  enfranchisement.  The  moral  sense  of  the  nation, 
which  had  become  more  keen  by  war,  the  alternations  of  the 
cause  oscillating  between  victory  and  defeat,  the  talk  of  the 
volunteers  about  the  camp  fires,  the  judgment  of  the  world, 
the  visible  tokens  of  the  Divine  will,  combined  to  aggravate 
and  heighten  the  demand  for  a  completed  republic  under 
universal  emancipation,  and  a  homogeneous  people  under 
universal  suffrage.  And  then,  repose.  It  has  come,  but  it 
could  only  have  come  after  war.  It  needed  the  tramp  of 
armies  to  break  down  the  prejudices  rooted  by  the  vicious 
overgrowth  of  an  hundred  years  and  twining  about  the 
very  body  of  the  Constitution.  We  might  as  well  suppose 
that  after  months  of  torrid  heat  and  vapor,  rolling  vege- 
table life  to  a  scroll,  the  God  of  nature  would  clear  the 
atmosphere  without  the  agency  of  electric  sublimity  and 
destruction,  as  believe  that  the  current  of  national  vice  of 
a  century  could  be  changed,  and  the  institutions  grounded 


216  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

in  the  mercenary  passions  of  many  generations  could  be 
overturned,  without  the  vicissitudes  and  agonies  of  pro- 
tracted war. 

Out  of  the  war  has  come  another  reform  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  powers  of  the  Government  which  never  would 
have  been  won  in  peace.  We  have  learned  at  last  that  the 
sovereignty  of  the  nation  is  greater  than  the  sovereignty  of 
the  States.  We  tried  that  question  under  the  civil  experience 
of  eighty  years  without  reaching  a  settlement.  The  Revolu- 
tion found  us  united,  but  only  for  a  special  purpose,  and  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  though  grand  as  a  war-cry,  was 
by  no  means  a  bond  of  government.  The  Confederation  which 
followed  proved  only  a  joint-stock  association,  liable  to  dis- 
solution at  any  moment,  because  it  established  no  central 
power  to  raise  revenue,  or  enforce  a  treaty,  or  compel  a  State. 
It  was  rich  enough  for  individual  liberty,  but  was  poverty  as 
a  unit  of  sovereignty.  It  sprang  out  of  provincialism,  and 
came  only  to  statism,  and  not  to  nationality.  It  was  some- 
thing splendid  as  a  stage  of  progress,  but  could  be  nothing  as 
a  consummation.  Then,  as  a  consequence,  came  the  Consti- 
tution. Singularly  enough,  Madison,  the  champion  of  the 
Constitution,  gave  to  his  own  work  its  first  and  worst  con- 
struction of  weakness  in  the  Virginia  resolutions  of  '98. 
Those  resolutions,  coupled  since  with  African  slavery,  have 
been  the  cause  of  our  war.  Wlien,  long  afterwards,  Web- 
ster, in  reply  to  Hayne,  put  forth  the  only  construction 
under  whicli  this  Union  could  live,  Madison,  then  an  old 
man,  explained  away  the  resolutions  of  '98 ;  but  it  was  too 
late,  the  mischief  had  begun  its  irresistible  work.  The  same 
school  of  interpretation  continued,  and  under  the  autliority 
of  its  great  master,  Calhoun,  it  outlived  the  argument  of 
Webster,  the  denunciation  of  Clay,  the  invective  of  Adams, 
and  took  its  last  animate  form  and  articulate  expres- 
sion in  James  Buchanan.  In  the  expiring  hours  of  his 
administration  he  led  the  way  to  the  opening  of  war  by 
pronmlgatiug  to  the  world  once  more,  and  for  the  last  time. 


DEDICATION    OF   SOLDIERS'    MONUMENT   AT   WORCESTER.    217 

that  the  national  sovereignty  was  powerless  before  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  States  ;  and  with  these  parting  words  he  retired 
from  the  capitol  to  his  eternal  retreat.  He  closed  the  doors 
of  the  old  school  forever,  and  it  only  remained  for  Abraham 
Lincoln  to  open  the  doors  of  the  new. 

And  now,  aftei-  all  these  years  of  the  strife  of  opinions  and 
of  arms,  we  have  come  to  the  opportunity  of  gratitude  for  the 
establishment  of  the  central  authority  of  this  Union,  of  the 
sovereignty  of  unity  over  its  parts,  of  the  oneness  and  inde- 
structibility of  American  nationality.  This  has  been  an  open 
question  before,  and  never  could  have  been  solved  until  the 
disputants  at  the  South  as  well  as  at  the  North  should  ac- 
knowledge it  to  be  solved  ;  and  the  ordeal  of  fire  and  blood 
alone  could  brin<f  them  to  such  acknowledgment.  And  that 
time  has  arrived.  They  who  resisted  the  idea  of  the  dominant 
authority  of  the  federal  principle  by  a  war  of  words  for  seventy 
years,  and  by  a  war  of  arms  for  four  years  which  seemed 
longer  than  the  seventy  before,  are  in  substantial  agreement 
with  other  sections  in  accepting  this  trial  of  battle  as  the 
finality.  They  have  entered  with  us  all  upon  reconstruction 
with  acknowledgment  of  the  establishment  of  federal  author- 
ity ;  disputed  before  but  conceded  at  length ;  claimed  by 
Hamilton,  but  frittered  quite  away  by  Madison ;  demonstrated 
by  Webster,  but  surrendered  by  Buchanan ;  established  now, 
if  anything  can  be  said  to  be  established,  for  all  coming  time 
by  the  hearts  and  by  the  arms  of  the  people.  Nothing  exceeds 
in  grandeur  the  settlement  of  this  disputed  question.  It 
proves  that  the  silence  of  the  Constitution,  which  all  over  the 
world  has  been  accounted  its  weakness,  was  destined  under 
Providence  to  become  its  strength.  Whatever  shall  be  the 
number  of  States  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  thev 
shall  live  and  govern  under  one  common  authority  and  under 
one  common  flag. 

Looking  back  to  the  events  of  the  contest,  we  find  there  a 
new  school  for  the  national  character.  I  am  not  afraid  of 
seeming  to  touch  upon  the  delicate  ground  of  military  glory. 


218  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

The  renown  of  martial  deeds  is  better  than  national  decay. 
The  necessity  had  become  imminent  and  ovevsliadovving  for 
some  fresh  infusion  in  the  sluggish  and  turbid  current  of  the 
national  spirit.  Inglorious  sloth  was  to  be  broken  by  virtuous 
activity.  For  half  a  century,  with  scarcely  auy  interruption, 
we  had  been  harvesting  the  fruits  of  prosperous  peace,  but 
we  had  also  garnered  into  the  treasury  of  the  heart  a  large 
mixture  of  the  noxious  growths  which  spring  up  in  a  long 
period  of  social  inertia.  The  atmosphere  was  heavy  with  the 
overspread  and  far-stretching  vapors  rising  from  the  malarial 
luxuriance  of  the  broad  level  of  materialistic  life,  and  the 
blast  of  war  came  to  inspire,  to  change,  and  to  purify.  The 
politics  and  ambitions  of  the  time  were  composed,  so  to  speak, 
of  two  or  three  stratified  periods  of  compromise  and  bargain, 
immutable  principles  exchanged  for  transient  repose,  when 
the  war  fell  to  startle  the  fallen  virtue  of  the  people  to  manly 
self-sacrifice  and  heroism.  In  such  a  change  the  whole  nation 
became  a  scliool  of  honor,  of  noble  aspirations,  of  exalted 
sentiments.  The  air  grew  fragrant  with  courage,  decision, 
manliness,  and  rectitude,  and  a  new  generation  rose  stocked 
with  exhilarating  lessons  and  examples.  You  may  deplore, 
you  must  deplore,  the  necessity  of  so  terrible  an  agency  of 
reformation,  but  you  recognize  in  it  the  hand  of  the  God  of 
your  fathers.  If  you  ask  in  what  sense  moral  and  social  good 
can  come  from  these  feats  of  arms,  from  the  trials  and  suffer- 
ing of  that  dread  ordeal,  the  answer  is,  —  good  in  tlie  very 
manifestation  of  greatness,  of  enterprise,  of  valor,  of  suffering ; 
good  in  the  shape  of  bright  and  stimulating  examples  offered 
to  the  contemplation  of  the  next  generation.  The  line  of 
uninterrupted  uniformity  connecting  the  ages  of  a  nation  may 
conduct  to  riches  and  contentment,  but  the  danger  is  that  it 
will  become  a  contentment  of  mercenary  and  obtuse  senti- 
ments even  worse  than  the  shock  of  martial  magnetism. 
Certain  it  is  that  the  Almighty  has  so  dealt  with  us,  and 
with  all  the  other  nations  of  modern  power. 

Nor  do  I  limit  my  estimate  of  the  moral  stimulation  of  the 


DEDICATION   OF   SOLDIERS'   MONUMENT   AT   WORCESTER.     219 

late  couflict  to  the  rugged  half  of  our  population.  In  no  less 
degree  has  it  been  a  stimulating  educator  to  the  other  sex, 
formed  to  gentle  manners  and  trained  to  a  merciful  religion. 
No  former  generation,  of  Spartan  or  Roman  fame,  has  better 
illustrated  the  whole  circle  of  grace  and  beneficence  than  the 
women  of  America  throughout  that  dark  and  troubled  period. 
Under  all  defeats  and  discouragements,  not  any  utterance  of 
doubt  nor  sign  of  dissension  among  the  sterner  sex,  nor  any 
degree  of  grief  or  sacrifice  brought  home  to  their  own  hearts, 
for  a  moment  disturbed  in  the  women  of  this  country  "  the 
firm  and  settled  purpose  of  their  souls  to  undergo  all  and  to 
do  all  that  the  meekest  patience,  the  noblest  resolution,  and 
the  highest  trust  in  God  could  enable  human  beings  to  suffer 
or  to  perform."  The  moral  and  social  heroism  which  the  war 
called  into  activity,  elevating  men  and  women  to  higher 
spheres  of  thought  and  action  than  any  they  had  moved  in 
before,  will  live  as  examples  during  this  generation  and  pass 
down  among  the  traditions  that  shall  instruct  and  animate 
the  following. 

It  seems  to  many  of  us  as  the  consciousness  of  yesterday 
that  bonfires  and  illuminations  in  all  the  land  proclaimed 
that  fraternal  blood  had  ceased  to  flow;  and  yet  even  already 
the  war  has  been  consigned  to  history,  and  the  era  of  restora- 
tion is  completed.  Pacification,  reconciliation,  meets  with 
an  all-embracing  welcome  in  every  section,  in  every  State. 
Providence,  in  its  benignant  work,  has  outstripped  the  antici- 
pations of  both  sides.  Unfriendly  prophets  in  Europe  have 
been  disappointed,  ■we  ourselves  have  been  disappointed,  by 
the  swiftly  following  reaction  of  all  the  better  parts  of  human 
nature.  Community  of  interest,  fellowship,  and  blood,  of 
strength,  pride,  and  renown,  has  so  quickly  proved  too  mighty 
and  too  benevolent  for  the  lingering  memory  of  wrong  and 
the  lurking  thought  of  retaliation.  Since  the  first  assembling 
of  States  at  Pliiladelphia  a  century  ago,  there  has  been  no 
such  manifestation  of  the  saving  grace  and  power  of  nation- 
ality as  that  which  now  pervades  this  great  people.     Nor  can 


220  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

the  history  of  civil  wars  in  other  countries  and  other  ages 
supply  a  parallel  or  a  precedent  to  ours. 

Within  five  years  after  the  shedding  of  blood  one  tone  and 
purpose  of  renationalization  courses  like  a  river  of  peace 
through  all  the  States  and  churches,  through  all  the  indus- 
tries and  intercommunications,  through  all  political  and  all 
social  life.  To-day  the  highest  policy  of  States  lies  in  the 
broadest  magnanimity,  and  the  wisest  statesmanship  is  for- 
getfulness  and  forgiveness.  We  have  passed  through  a  pro- 
tracted period  of  ^^•ar ;  now  let  us  take  our  hearts  with  us  into 
a  protracted  period  of  fraternization.  The  voice  of  pacification 
cries  to  us  from  the  ground.  The  earth  is  the  common  tomb 
of  the  war,  the  common  resting-place  of  silence  and  reconcili- 
ation, where  in  the  awful  but  kindly  brotherhood  of  death 
the  dust  of  warriors  may  commingle  in  peace.  Tlie  living 
ought  to  learn  peace  from  the  dead.  I  am  sure  that  we  all 
concurred  with  the  President  of  the  United  States  in  his 
recent  declaration  to  Congress,  that  the  last  manifestation  of 
sectional  passion  ought  to  be  buried  beneath  a  tolerant  and 
statesmanly  amnesty.  The  people  of  all  the  States,  weary 
of  war,  weary  of  dissension,  hail  the  dear  old  flag,  never  so 
dear  before,  as  the  assurance  of  a  united  nation  and  univer- 
sal peace. 

To  those  who  fell  we  bring  the  votive  offering  of  this 
passing  hour.  The  recorded  list  is  rich  with  memories  of 
self-sacrificing  patriotism  and  the  immortal  fame  of  dying  for 
one's  country.  In  reading  and  studying  their  names  I  have 
felt  oppressed  with  a  desire  to  make  here  and  there  some 
special  mention  ;  but  I  have  schooled  myself  to  forbear,  under 
a  sense  of  justice  forbidding  me  to  lay  a  discriminating  finger 
upon  the  sacred  roll.  Wherever  they  oifered  up  their  lives, 
amid  the  thunder  of  battle  or  on  the  exliaustin"  march,  in 
victory  or  in  defeat,  in  hospital  or  in  prison,  officers  and  pri- 
vates, soldiers  and  patriots  all,  they  fell  like  the  beauty  of 
Israel,  on  their  high  places,  burying  all  distinction  of  rank  in 
the  august  equality  of  death.    In  that  same  spirit  of  impartial 


DEDICATION    OF   SOLDIERS'   MONUMENT   AT   WORCESTER.    221 

justice  tlieir  names  are  engraved  on  the  enduring  bronze, 
where  they  will  be  read  in  after  ages  when  the  hands  that 
reared  the  work,  and  the  voices  which  now  dedicate  it,  shall 
have  passed  away  and  been  forgotten.  The  names  of  those 
who  fell  at  Marathon,  inscribed  upon  the  pillars  erected  over 
the  spot,  were  legible  to  more  than  twenty  successive  genera- 
tions ;  and  we  may  devoutly  trust  that  these  names  of  our 
sons,  if  obscured  by  time,  will  be  restored  by  the  pious  hands 
of  our  successors,  and  will  continue  as  long  as  the  Union 
shall  last,  though  it  be  a  thousand  years.  Especially  to  you, 
surviving  comrades  of  the  conflict,  who  have  assembled  in 
such  vast  throng  to  participate  in  these  fleeting  ceremonies, 
we  commit  the  keeping  of  this  sacred  trust,  —  to  the  army 
of  the  living  the  duty  of  protecting  the  honor  of  the  army  of 
the  dead. 


INTELLECTUAL    LEADERSHIP    IN    AMERICAN 

HISTORY. 

AN    ADDRESS    DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE    SOCIETY    OF    PIII    BETA    KAPPA,    AT 
BROWN    UNIVERSITY,    PROVIDENCE,  JUNE  15,   1876. 

Our  theme  should  be  fitting  to  the  year  of  centennial  an- 
niversaries, of  which  we  are  passing  the  threshold.  It  is 
apparent  that  the  present  and  few  succeeding  years,  recalling 
the  days  of  our  first  declared  nationality  and  the  series  of 
measures  in  the  council  and  the  field  which  gave  success  to 
the  declaration,  will  become  henceforth  memorable  for  festal 
days.  We  are  to  have  a  time  of  competitive  celebrations 
marked  by  liberal  pageant  in  token  of  martial  events,  and 
the  sensuous  parts  of  our  nature  are  likely  to  be  worked  to 
their  capacity.  Of  all  that  which  is  to  be  commemorated 
the  share  most  striking  to  the  average  every-day  senses  un- 
doubtedly comes  from  the  narrative  of  arms,  and  it  meets  a 
responsive  magnet  in  a  people  under  whose  sober  side  touches 
of  military  spirit  have  always  found  quick  reception.  They 
have  inherited  a  taste  of  the  soldier's  life.  Descended  from 
ancestors  who  for  more  than  one  hundred  years  after  cis- 
atlantic colonization  were  engaged  in  war  or  were  every  mo- 
ment exposed  to  it,  summoned  now  by  these  thick-coming 
anniversaries  to  recite  the  annals  of  the  field  and  to  realize 
in  their  own  quickened  pulse  the  rapture  of  victory,  we  need 
not  wonder  that  tliey  seize  upon  methods  of  commemoration 
the  most  demonstrative,  the  most  cognizable  by  the  outward 
senses ;  that  they  subordinate  the  oration  to  the  spectacle ; 
that  they 


INTELLECTUAL   LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY.      223 

"  Let  the  kettle  to  the  trumpet  speak, 
The  trumpet  to  the  caunoneer  without, 
The  cannons  to  the  heavens,  the  heaven  to  earth." 

This  is  according  to  nature,  this  is  Anglo-Saxon,  this  is 
American.  But  it  belongs  to  an  assembly  of  educated  men 
to  discharge  the  same  duty  in  another  mode  of  procedure. 
They  penetrate  beneath  the  surface  of  historical  narrative, 
behind  the  scenery  of  battles,  among  the  more  subtile  forces 
of  our  national  development,  which  have  been  chief  agencies 
in  conducting  us  to  the  high  situation  from  which  the  cele- 
brants  may  now  deliver  their  pyrotechnics. 

We  cannot  pass  in  review  from  our  own  advanced  position 
over  the  stirring  Eevolutionary  stage,  over  the  broad  and  pic- 
turesque colonial  period,  back  to  the  more  serious  era  of  the 
advent  and  settlement,  and  not  pay  tribute  to  the  age  which 
M'ent  before  them  all,  out  of  which  they  sprung,  a  part  of 
which  they  were  —  to  the  masters  who  directed  the  mind  of 
England  two  centuries  and  a  half  ago,  who  came  here  in  per- 
son and  in  representatives,  whose  association  with  our  subse- 
quent history  is  immortal.  Our  epic,  from  the  first  embar- 
kation down  to  the  last  admission  of  a  State,  is  especially 
interesting  to  the  intelligent  inquirer  for  the  spiritualistic, 
the  intellectual  element  which  preceded  and  gave  it  birth, 
animated  it  in  all  its  parts,  supplied  its  actors  with  motive 
power,  which  has  made  it  the  story  of  a  people  sprung  from 
the  best  race  of  men  at  the  time  of  its  matured  strenirth,  and 
advancing  to  a  higher  plane  of  civilization  than  that  upon 
which  it  began.  The  heroic  courage,  the  sorrow  and  suffer- 
ing, the  adventure  and  enterprise  which  mark  the  century 
from  1660,  when  the  colonies  had  acquired  a  fixed  and  homo- 
geneous condition,  down  to  declared  independence,  which 
jrive  to  it  in  the  reading  the  changing  shades  of  serious 
annals  and  gay  romance,  were  the  natural  flowering  of 
the  English  mind  under  the  training  of  an  equal  period 
preceding. 

The  beginning  of  the  American  people  was  but  the  transfer 


224  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

to  the  transatlantic  continent  of  an  eclectic  and  adventurous 
portion  of  the  English  nation.  These  passing  anniversaries 
carry  us  back  indeed  to  stages  of  infancy  as  to  numbers,  as 
to  material  appointments  and  possessions,  but  in  the  higher 
forces  of  civilization,  manhood,  and  culture  there  was  here 
from  the  start  the  same  maturity  which  crowned  the  English 
communities  in  the  golden  age  of  Elizabeth  and  her  succes- 
sor. Whenever  you  contemplate  what  that  maturity  was, 
liow  broad  in  studied  letters  and  statesmanship,  in  progres- 
sive science  and  art,  and  especially  how  it  bore  on  its 
advancing  crest  the  promise  of  deliverance  from  spiritual 
bondage,  you  are  contemplating  the  actual  state  of  the  mind 
of  the  planters  of  this  nation  when  they  stepped  from  an  old 
country  to  a  new,  only  changing  the  scene  of  their  life  in  the 
conflicts  of  their  age.  The  spirit  of  Northern  Europe  was  then 
for  the  first  time  in  full  activity  under  immense  influences 
proceeding  from  the  Eeformation  and  the  introduction  of  the 
art  of  printing.  At  Frankfort-on-the-Main  the  traveller  walks 
from  the  public  square,  where  the  memorial  group  of  bronze 
statues  commemorates  the  introduction  of  printing,  to  the 
house  in  which  Luther  once  lodged  while  in  the  flesh,  feeling 
that  he  is  venerating  in  authentic  symbols  the  authors  of  a 
revolution  of  which  the  benefits  have  reached  to  every  fire- 
side in  Christendom.  Slowly  overcoming  the  sleep  of  the 
Northern  communities,  and  moving  with  the  Divine  assurance 
which  always  accompanies  every  true  reform,  these  resistless 
agencies  at  length  imparted  a  stimulation  to  the  mental  liab- 
its  of  Great  Britain  which  the  successors  of  the  Virgin  Queen 
might  check  indeed  but  could  not  suppress.  The  publication 
of  the  results  of  maritime  voyage  and  discovery  on  this  con- 
tinent spread  a  glamour  over  the  spirit  of  curious  and  daring 
men,  wliich  scarcely  the  sternest  disappointment  and  disaster 
could  dispel.  The'tide  was  rising  to  its  flood  at  the  opening 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  A  higher  poetry  and  philoso- 
phy, strange  religious  rhapsody  and  religious  exploration,  the 
lessons  of  ancient  and  heroic  freedom  brought  out  into  allur- 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADEKSHIP   IN  AMERICAN    HISTORY.      225 

ing  light  by  the  changed  tastes  and  opportunities  for  the  old 
languages,  a  wider  education,  another  dispensation  over  the 
domain  of  practical  science  and  invention,  a  new  destiny  for 
the  aim  of  benevolence  and  philanthropy,  wisdom  of  every 
degree,  conceits  of  every  kind,  but  in  all  and  through  all  a 
paramount  and  aggressive  progress  lighted  the  modern  world 
on  its  pathway.  For  the  next  fifty  years  the  air  was  exhil- 
araut  with  intellectual  vitality.  The  genius  of  change  pene- 
trated the  palace,  the  closet,  and  the  shop,  and  throughout 
the  capital  city  of  our  race  tlie  vigil  of  night  was  kept  faith- 
ful to  the  revolutionary  studies.  "  God  is  decreeing,"  Milton 
said,  "  to  begin  some  new  and  great  period,"  and  then,  with 
quaint  expression  of  the  national  self-consciousness  which 
has  never  gone  out  of  his  countrymen  from  that  day  to  this, 
he  adds : — 

"  What  does  God  then  but  reveal  himself,  as  his  manner  is,  first 
to  his  Enghshmen  1  Behold  now  this  vast  city  ;  a  city  of  refuge, 
the  mausion-house  of  liberty,  encompassed  and  surrounded  by  his 
protection  ;  the  shop  of  war  hath  not  there  more  anvils  and  ham- 
mers waking,  to  fashion  out  the  plates  and  instruments  of  armed 
justice  in  defence  of  beleaguered  truth,  than  there  be  pens  and 
hands  there,  sitting  by  their  studious  lamps,  musing,  searching, 
revolving  new  notions  and  ideas  wherewith  to  present  as  with 
their  homage  and  their  fealty  the  approaching  refoi-mation  :  others 
as  fast  reading,  trying  all  things,  assenting  to  the  force  of  reason 
and  convincement." 

Such  was  that  age  ;  and  such  was  the  strength  of  the 
American  beginning.  Out  of  that  age  and  under  that  lead 
we  came.  Ours  was  not  a  transfusion  of  blood  from  one  set 
of  men  into  another ;  nor  an  offshoot,  nor  an  engraftment ;  it 
was  the  removal  of  ripening  English  minds  in  English  bodies 
into  another  country.  During  the  fifty  years  of  active  emi- 
gration as  good  came  here  as  were  left  behind.  The  early 
peopling  of  Virginia  was  by  the  average  cavaliers  of  the  day, 
under  the  direction  of  higher  grades  of  intellect  at  their  lead, 
and  there  was  soon  present  a  large  array  of  men  of  education, 

15 


226  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

property,  and  condition ;  Maryland  from  the  outset  rose  upon 
the  shoulders  of  persons  of  high  birth,  moved  to  their  destina- 
tion by  the  best  thought  at  home ;  the  ships  of  Massachusetts 
brought  here  many  of  the  choice  sons  of  education,  scholars 
in  the  languages,  of  culture  the  same  that  prevailed  in  Eng- 
land, not  cosmic  indeed  as  modern  learning,  for  the  old 
scholastic  studies  of  the  schoolmen  then  overlaid  the  univer- 
sal mind  of  Europe.  The  names  of  these  intellectual  leaders 
are  too  many  and  too  familiar  to  need  repeating ;  they  rise  at 
every  recurring  thought  of  tlie  earliest  religious  freedom  of 
the  world  in  Maryland,  and  of  the  most  powerful  republican 
theocracy  of  the  world  in  Massachusetts.  Then  we  ought  to 
consider  that  these  heads  of  the  nascent  provinces  were  in 
constant  intercourse  and  contact  with  the  best  talent  and 
wisdom  of  Europe,  and  that  our  separate  colonial  histories, 
down  to  the  very  day  of  independence,  associate  the  new 
country  and  the  old  by  ties  which  linked  together  in  personal 
relations  the  wise  and  great  of  both  lands.  Wiuthrop  and 
Endicott,  Cotton  and  Hooker,  and  their  associated  managers 
in  the  other  provinces,  brought  with  them  and  kept  up  after- 
wards acquaintance  with  the  upper  life  on  the  other  side. 
At  one  time  or  another,  on  this  or  the  other  side  of  the  ocean, 
the  heads  of  these  provinces  were  in  living  familiarity  with 
the  high  discussions  and  high  disputants  under  two  reigns : 
they  saw  and  heard  Lord  Bacon  when  he  pleaded  gently  and 
wisely  for  toleration ;  they  remembered  Witgift  speaking 
softly  for  them,  and  Bancroft  with  his  frown  ;  they  caught 
light  from  all  the  central  sources ;  they  learned  stability  of 
faith  from  Pym  and  from  Sidney,  and  public  law  from  Hale 
and  from  Coke  ;  they  received  direct  communication  and 
counsel  from  John  Hampden ;  they  read  and  perhaps  saw 
acted  the  picturesque  and  Doric  Comus  of  Milton,  and  they 
lived  by  the  side  of  the  prince  of  poets  and  the  prince  of 
philosophers,  who  in  the  language  of  Macaulay  made  their 
age  a  more  glorious  and  important  era  in  the  history  of  the 
human  mind  than  the  age  of  Pericles  or  Augustus.      It  is 


INTELLECTUAL   LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY.      227 

their  association  with  living  genius  and  learning  which  is  to 
us  in  this  day  a  lingering  inspiration,  for  such  instruction  of 
states  lengtliens  out  through  the  generations.  It  is  some- 
thing of  value  to  us  that  the  founder  of  Ehode  Island  kept 
her  interest  warm  by  the  side  of  the  throne  through  intimacy 
with  the  learned  historian  and  premier  Clarendon ;  that  the 
Carolinas  are  imperishably  related  to  Shaftesbury,  the  par- 
agon of  accomplished  ministers,  with  John  Locke,  the  phi- 
losopher so  quaint,  original,  and  great,  whose  framework  of 
government  did  not  endure,  but  whose  benevolence  survived 
to  welcome  the  Huguenots  of  France  ;  that  the  Covenanters 
of  New  Jersey  were  saturated  with  the  spirit  of  Milton  while 
living,  as  they  had  been  educated  under  the  writings  of 
George  Buchanan  who  went  before  them  ;  that  over  the  wide 
South,  first  named  Virginia,  still  lingers  a  memory  that 
kindles  to  enthusiasm  at  the  mention  of  their  visitor,  the 
incomparable,  the  thousand-souled  Sir  Walter  Ealeigh. 

In  thus  speaking  of  the  early  masters  who  have  left  their 
image  in  our  history,  I  am  indulging  in  no  rhetorical  illusion. 
The  difficulty  in  our  apprehension  of  the  facts  lies  within  our 
natural  limitations.  Eemoteness  of  time  casts  a  haze  over 
our  perception  of  the  continuity  and  duration  of  mental  in- 
fluences in  forming  the  character  of  states.  If  we  could 
place  ourselves  in  palpable  connection  with  the  generations 
which  have  passed,  the  train  of  public  educators  would  pass 
before  us  in  lifelike  and  august  procession.  But  this  can 
be  only  partially  attained  by  grouping  in  speech  the  great 
personages  of  history.  A  venerable  and  remarkable  Chief 
Justice  of  New  England,  dead  within  fifteen  years,  used  to 
say  that  he  once  saw  a  man  whose  father  had  seen  the  first 
child  born  in  the  harbor  of  the  Pilgrims;  thus  seeming  to 
span  with  his  own  hand  more  than  two  centuries  of  Massa- 
chusetts. But  historical  analysis  and  elimination  furnish  to 
the  thoughtful  student  a  sufficient  thread  for  tracing  the  lines 
of  descent  in  the  life  of  communities.  In  the  year  1637, 
about  the  time  when  a  governing  power  was  established  in 


228  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

the  place  where  we  are  now  assembled,  he  who  was  after- 
ward tlie  author  of  "Paradise  Lost,"  made  a  journey  into  South- 
ern Europe.    In  Paris  he  met  and  was  entertained  by  Grotius, 
who  first  wrote  for  freedom  of  commerce   against  maritime 
restrictions ;  while  he  remained  there  Descartes  put  to  press 
his   first  great  philosophical  treatise,  which  is  still  quoted 
among  the  causes  of  change  in  modern  thought;  in  Italy  he 
turned  aside  to  visit  the  injured  Galileo,  whose  persecution 
was  a  feature  of  the  ecclesiastical  tyranny  of  the  time ;  and 
in  the  album  of  an  Italian  nobleman  at  Genoa  he  wrote  his 
autograph  after  that  of  Thomas  Wentworth,  tlie  brilliant  Earl 
of  Strafford.     We  find,  therefore,  in  this  group  of  contempora- 
ries, thus  accidentally  brought  together,  five  first-rate  figures 
that  were  directly   allied   to   the   advancement   of  our  own 
country.     Grotius,  that  "  chief  of  men,"  who  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  international  intercourse  in  the  principles  of  justice, 
whose  doctrines  educated  the  colonies  to  an  early  and  con- 
stant resistance  of  the  navigation  acts  of  Parliament  which 
resulted  in  their  independence ;  Descartes,  the  revolutionist 
philosopher,  who  enunciated  the  law  of  individual  conscious- 
ness and  intellectual  freedom,  wdiich  at  once  became  seminal 
and  vital  in  every  provincial  organization  on  this  side,  and 
which  to-day  underlies  the  constitution  of  every  American 
commonwealth ;  Galileo,  one  of  the  pioneers  and  one  of  the 
martyrs  of  the  revolt  of  science,  whose  misfortunes  under  in- 
quisitorial absolutism  reached  the  ears  of  the  brotherhood  of 
reform  and  helped  raise  the  party  which  swept  with  human 
rights  over  England  and  the  new  world  in  the  West ;  Lord 
Strafford,  wlio  returned  home  to  aid  our  cause  under  Charles, 
by  his  betrayal  of  the  franchise  of  his  country  and  our  own, 
and  after  granting  no  lenity  to  our  friends  or  our  cause  at 
length  stretched  liis  own  neck  upon  the  scaffold  ;  and  John 
Milton,  who,  unFike  his  fellow-countryman  and  fellow-trav- 
eller, stood  fast  to  the  challenge  of  his  conscience,  and  pro- 
claimed  in  immortal  prose  the  brave  thoughts  of  the   new 
dispensation. 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY.      229 

"  In  liberty's  defence,  a  noble  task. 
Of  which  all  Europe  rang  from  side  to  side," 

which  have  moved  to  triumphant  deeds  eight  generations 
upon  this  continent.  It  acquaints  us  with  the  dignity  of  our 
pupiLage  thus  to  draw  near  in  imagination  to  our  instructors 
long  departed  ;  it  brings  before  our  sight  that  splendid  age 
from  which  we  have  derived  our  power,  to  call  these  masters 
around  us ;  we  are  with  them,  and  they  are  with  us,  when  we 
see  the  blood  of  the  first  governor  of  Massachusetts  coursing 
among  us  in  the  person  of  a  most  accomplished  descendant, 
and  the  blood  of  another  flowing  for  a  testimony  to  mankind 
under  the  headsman's  axe  ;  when  we  look  upon  the  regicide 
judges  face  to  face,  Goffe  and  Whalley  on  the  banks  of  our 
Connecticut,  and  Dixwell  amid  his  studies  in  the  shade  of 
New  Haven;  when  Bancroft  and  Macaulay  only  disagree 
whether  Cromwell  and  Hampden  actually  took  passage  and 
went  on  shipboard  for  Boston ;  wlien  we  know  that  our  own 
Ealeisih  was  a  member  of  the  same  club  in  London  with 
Ben  Jonson  and  Shakespeare  ;  Mdien  every  spirited  youth  of 
Massachusetts  is  stirred  to  the  study  of  the  martyred  Sidney 
by  his  Latin  on  her  arms. 

Quite  possibly  we  do  not  often  enough  reflect  how  effect- 
ually the  spirit  of  one  man,  of  a  few  men,  may  decide  the 
characteristics  of  a  people,  the  destiny  of  a  state.  Under 
the  military  system  of  Europe  in  former  ages  it  was  with- 
in the  power  of  a  single  man  to  conquer  a  city  and  write 
his  name  upon  its  walls,  to  modify,  dismember,  reconstruct 
a  kingdom,  and  af&x  to  it  for  a  longer  or  shorter  period  his 
own  projected  will  and  law.  Napoleon  was  the  latest  and  the 
greatest  of  this  order,  but  his  imperial  creations  were  quickly 
swept  back  to  their  original  relations,  —  for  though  the  sword 
may  carve  the  pathway  to  a  throne,  it  cannot  engrave  tlie 
enduring  character  of  a  people.  But  the  moral  agents  in  the 
forming  of  communities  leave  more  lasting  impressions,  which 
are  beyond  the  power  of  accident  to  remove  or  to  change.  All 
the  laws  of  human  condition,  natural  generation,  veneration, 


230       ADDRESSES  OF  ALEXANDER  H.  BULLOCK. 

imitation,  faith,  tradition,  and  memory  combine  to  perpetuate 
the  mould  of  a  commonwealth  cast  by  a  master  after  the  pat- 
tern of  divine  virtue,  and  every  succeeding  intellect  of  grasp 
and  sway  may  add  to  its  symmetry  and  its  strength.  Behold 
at  our  door  the  power  of  a  man  abiding  through  eight  gener- 
ations !  Taught  to  shrink  from  the  forms  of  arbitrary  jDower 
whilst  a  boy  lounging  about  the  doors  of  the  Star  Chamber, 
taught  law  from  the  living  lips  of  Coke,  tolerant  charity  and 
reforming  love  from  the  private  hours  of  Milton,  many  lan- 
guages at  Oxford  where  the  classic  statue  of  liberty  broke  in 
Grecian  model  on  his  sight,  taught  experience  and  trial,  sor- 
row and  courage,  in  Massachusetts,  Eoger  Williams  came 
hither  from  fortunes  as  varied,  as  romantic,  as  those  of  John 
Smith  or  "Walter  Raleigh,  and  planted  the  first  purely  free 
government  on  the  globe.  While  Descartes  was  writing  out 
in  clearest  dialectics,  Williams  was  establishing  in  concrete 
and  everlasting  form  the  absolute  and  unqualified  freedom  of 
conscience  under  human  government.  I  do  not  know  why 
I  should  not  say,  since  it  is  true,  that  Massachusetts  in  her 
march  of  progressive  culture  took  two  centuries  almost  to  a 
year  from  his  removal  out  of  her  borders  to  strike  from  her 
own  Constitution  the  last  faded  badge  of  the  connection  of 
the  Churcli  and  the  State.  The  charter  which  he  dictated  to 
the  crown,  alone  of  the  original  thirteen  scarcely  changed  in 
essentials,  still  endures  for  his  visible  monument ;  but  in  the 
breadth  of  true  catholicity,  in  the  belief  of  the  benevolence 
of  human  nature,  in  the  cultivation  of  methods  of  peace  and 
fraternity,  in  the  predominance  of  a  religious  sect  never  at 
variance  with  any  other,  M'hich  have  tided  the  life  of  his  gifts 
and  graces  over  the  lapse  of  two  hundred  and  forty  years,  the 
memorial  of  his  invisible  glory  is  reflected  through  all  habi- 
tations and  all  hearts.  The  lessons  of  the  teacher  caught  by 
the  leaders  of  the  following  age  have  imparted  a  tinge  and 
flavor  to  the  culture  of  the  State.  Perhaps  in  imagination, 
perhaps  in  the  discernment  of  reality,  I  seem  to  myself  to 
trace   the    extension   of    the   same   intellectual   freedom   to 


INTELLECTUAL   LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN    HISTORY.      231 

another,  who  in  the  next  century  impressed  his  benevolent 
genius  upon  the  souls  of  this  island  home.  Berkeley  gave 
to  this  people  the  four  midway  years  of  his  life  of  spirit- 
ual amenity.  Of  every  attainment,  grace,  and  accomplish- 
ment ;  admired  by  every  school  of  pliilosophy,  while  he 
maintained  his  own ;  beloved  by  Pope  and  Swift  and  Addi- 
son, while  they  hated  each  other ;  beloved  by  all  in  that  gal- 
axy that  continued  the  light  of  the  reign  of  Anne  over  tliat 
of  two  Georges,  —  he  came  and  erected  his  bower  of  study 
amoncf  the  cliffs  of  this  coast.  In  letters,  and  in  the  walks 
of  village  life,  he  was  to  his  generation  a  fountain  of  instruc- 
tion, and  such  fountains  in  a  free  commonwealth  never  dry. 
And  in  the  century  still  the  next,  another  and  kindred  spirit, 
native-born  of  the  island,  devoted  to  the  State  the  latest 
years  of  his  inspiring  lessons,  "  the  love  of  wisdom  and  the 
wisdom  of  love,"  so  rich  in  the  field  of  general  literature,  so 
pleading  for  a  wider  scope  of  popular  education,  for  the  en- 
franchisement of  man,  for  the  world's  peace,  so  aglow  with 
the  sweet  influences  of  Christianity.  To  the  scholarly  and 
devout  resident  of  Newport  the  whole  scene,  of  cliff  and 
beach  and  the  breathing  sea,  takes  on  the  aspect  of  a  memo- 
rial imperishable  to  Berkeley  and  to  Channing.  Felicitous 
has  been  the  lot  of  Ehode  Island  to  have  had  distributed 
over  her  three  centuries  three  intellectual  masters,  whose  ad- 
ministration of  her  thought  and  aspiration  was  never  colored 
by  asceticism  or  gloom,  was  always  stimulating,  always  serene, 
always  encouraging,  in  full  accord  with  the  divine  monosyl- 
lable that  glistens  from  her  shield. 

The  term  of  active  European  emigration  to  this  land  cov- 
ered rather  less  than  the  length  of  two  generations ;  and  all 
that  we  are,  and  all  that  we  have,  may  in  a  large  degree  be 
traced  back  to  the  public  character  which  was  then  estab- 
lished. The  roll  of  those  who  came  contained  a  number  of 
leading  minds  as  large  proportionately  as  the  roll  of  those 
who  remained  behind.  Something  that  was  chivalrous,  some- 
thing that  was  courtly,  still  adhered  to  those  heads ;  much 


232  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

learning  of  the  kind  that  then  prevailed,  of  studied  Listory 
and  language  ;  perhaps  not  yet  much  practised  statesmanship, 
but,  as  events  soon  showed,  a  great  capacity  for  it.  Vane 
and  Williams,  Endicott  and  Saltonstall,  Winthrop  the  senior 
and  the  junior,  Hooker  and  Cotton,  were  fair  types  of  the 
leaders  on  both  sides,  most  of  them  English  university  men, 
all  of  them  such  as  led  England  on  to  the  Eevolutiou  of 
1688  and  rescued  her  Constitution.  I  allow  they  became 
especially  engrossed  in  the  high  mysteries  of  divinity,  which 
became  shaded  by  their  forest  abode,  and  took  in  the  vagaries 
of  a  larger  freedom  under  a  new  sky.  But  as  they  erected 
the  altars  of  the  Church  and  the  State  upon  the  same  Zion 
and  within  the  same  temple,  the  same  subtlety  which  guarded 
the  one  also  guarded  the  other  ;  the  same  enthusiasm,  if  you 
please,  the  same  fanaticism,  which  sustained  them  in  the 
pursuit  of  abstruse  theology,  also  sustained  them  in  the 
pursuit  of  a  new  liberty ;  the  same  extravagant  rejection 
of  authority  which  made  them  faithful  dogmatists  for  the 
Church  made  them  obstinate  partisans  for  the  State ;  the 
same  conscious  assurance  that  made  them  polemics  in  relig- 
ion made  them  republicans  in  politics.  During  the  calm 
and  study  of  the  residence  of  their  sect  in  Switzerland,  by 
the  "  clear,  placid  Leman,"  in  the  reflection  of  light  and 
shadow  from  the  eternal  rnonarchs  of  nature,  their  ideas  of 
the  unseen  world  had  become  consolidated,  their  ideas  of  the 
social  civil  framework  had  become  codified ;  they  would  have 
no  sovereign  in  their  hearts  save  God,  no  sovereign  in  their 
laws  not  subordinated  to  their  interpretation  of  Him ;  as  the 
phrase  goes,  they  would  have  a  Church  without  a  bishop,  a 
State  without  a  king.  Those  were  great  ideas  for  that  age, 
and  they  could  only  be  enforced  by  great  and  original  minds, 
comprehensive  and  flexible  enough  for  the  founders  of  a  na- 
tion. Now,  if  you  follow  the  history  of  the  scene  on  which 
these  views  were  acted  out,  you  find  that  these  actors,  to 
their  character  as  theologians,  whatever  you  may  think  of 
that,  soon  added  the  acquired  character  of  astute,  wary,  and 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY.      233 

stubborn  statesmen.  As  religionists  and  as  politicians  their 
path  must  soon  divide :  as  religionists  they  carried  every- 
thing in  their  own  way  and  with  a  high  hand,  with  none  to 
obstruct  tliem  ;  as  politicians  the  shadows  of  kingly  preten- 
sions advanced  gradually  over  the  sea,  enveloped  them  in 
darkness,  and  shut  them  in  to  their  wit's  end.  They  were 
obliged  to  supplement  religious  zeal  with  a  large  worldly 
wisdom,  and  all  the  way  from  about  1640  to  1689  you 
observe  in  the  directors  of  these  provinces  a  growing  genius 
for  affah's,  a  chary  taste  for  civil  policy,  a  certain  wise,  strong 
sense  of  diplomacy.  When  the  mailed  hand  of  royal  inter- 
ference approached,  so  long  as  they  were  too  feeble  to  resist, 
they  were  Fabian  in  their  policy,  and  warded  off  the  hour. 
On  grave  occasions  they  convened  their  synods  and  held  their 
fasts,  but  these  became  a  school  and  an  education ;  the  pul- 
pits were  filled  by  acute  teachers,  who  preached  altogether  on 
the  right  side;  so  that,  allowing  for  their  greater  share  of 
prayer  and  praise,  they  had  in  their  synods  and  their  fasts  all 
that  we  should  have  now  in  our  best  chosen  constitutional 
conventions.  There  is  nothing  more  interesting  in  all  the 
life  of  these  progenitors  of  our  history  than  their  studied  use 
of  diplomacy  in  the  years  covering  the  fall  of  the  first  Charles 
and  the  rise  of  the  second,  with  Cromwell  intervening,  —  a 
period  requiring  them  to  act  parts  so  delicate  and  so  variant, 
with  no  electric  cable  to  supply  them  in  the  evening  with  the 
policy  for  the  next  morning.  Great  results  hung  suspended 
on  the  action  of  the  ministers  who  assembled  in  their  synods 
in  Boston,  —  for  there  was  not  a  newspaper  published  in 
America  till  the  eighteenth  century,  —  and  they  rapidly 
became  masters  of  the  situation  more  by  their  reserved 
power  in  diplomacy  than  by  their  inspired  power  in  the- 
ology. They  were  preparing  their  generation  for  a  day  of 
greater  power,  vrhen  the  bell  of  revolution  might  safely  strike 
the  hour. 

That  beyond  question  was  the  educational  period  of  the 
country,  as   youth  is   the  period   for  character  in  the  indi- 


234  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER    H.    BULLOCK. 

vidual  life.  It  was  her  education  under  the  champions  of 
her  freedom,  fitted  by  endowment  and  culture  to  carry  her 
through  the  tremendous  process  God  had  ordained.  Such 
was  their  situation  and  their  power.  A  kind  of  mediaeval 
port  and  mien,  something  like  an  intellectual  feudalism, 
gave  to  them  the  walk  of  masters ;  they  admonished  others 
against  the  authority  of  kings  and  nobles,  but  they  did  not 
relinquish  the  authority  due  to  themselves  as  chosen  vessels 
of  the  Divine  purpose  for  the  coming  nation.  Under  their 
treatment  of  kings  and  parliaments  and  commissions,  their 
constituents  and  followers  inhaled  their  first  conception  of 
an  American  nationality.  Out  of  that  robust  and  austere 
school  came  the  broader  culture  and  sweeter  disj^ositions  of 
later  days.  Advanced  into  the  next  century,  those  stern 
and  dark  features  had  become  softened  by  another  education, 
by  schools  and  libraries  more  purely  American,  by  a  younger 
class  of  scholars  spread  over  the  country  from  the  univer- 
sity at  Cambridge ;  but  we  ought  never  to  forget  that  the 
schools,  the  libraries,  and  the  university  were  established 
by  them.  Time  was  diffusing  their  mind  like  the  waters 
of  irrigation,  which,  as  they  receded  from  the  shade  and 
gloom  of  their  source,  took  the  warmth  of  the  open  field 
and  the  sparkle  of  the  cheerful  sun.  Mankind  could  not 
long  live  and  be  happy  under  the  frowns  of  a  puritanical 
theocracy.  At  once  the  school  of  the  Church  and  the  State, 
as  it  approached  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  it 
exhibited  the  manifestations  of  change ;  the  work  had  been 
laid  and  transmitted  to  a  different  generation.  Society  had 
passed  through  the  transformation  which  in  Scotland  would 
be  necessary  before  she  could  welcome  AValter  Scott,  and  in 
America  before  she  would  trust  herself  in  the  arms  of  George 
Washington.  From  the  Church  all  that  was  superstitious 
or  cruel  or  whimsical  in  the  day  of  Cotton  ]\tather  had  been 
burned  away  in  the  expiatory  fires  through  which  bodies 
politic  must  sometimes  pass,  and  it  rose  with  a  fresli  glory 
in  the  grandeur  of  Edwards,  the  learning  of  Cooper,  and  the 


INTELLECTUAL   LEADERSHIP    IN    AMERICAN    HISTORY.       235 

heroism  of  Mayliew.  The  State,  too,  now  shone  with  a 
majesty  distinctively  its  own,  and  ascended  to  the  respect 
of  Christendom  under  the  eloquence  of  Otis,  the  learning 
and  strength  of  John  Adams,  the  magnetic  genius  of  Quincy 
and  Warren,  the  wisdom  of  Franklin  and  the  culture  of 
Dickinson,  and  the  unconquerable  will  of  Samuel  Adams. 
But  all  that  larger  growth  and  attraction,  all  that  wider 
range  of  tastes  and  ambitions  expanding  grandly  toward 
the  high  things  of  knowledge,  were  the  long-wrought,  the 
hard-taught  product  of  the  human  mind,  the  human  will, 
under  the  leadership  of  the  age  that  had  gone  to  its  rest. 

A  more  critical  urgency  for  action  had  now  arrived.  A 
better  combined  array  of  moral  forces  than  that  which  led 
tlie  colonies  in  the  last  years  of  their  dependence  and  the 
first  of  their  union  we  might  search  the  centuries  to  discover. 
I  take  for  granted  you  agree  with  me  that  the  more  culti- 
vated minds  take  the  lead  in  civil  life.  There  is  a  theory 
that  public  revolutions  proceed  upward  from  the  body  of 
the  people,  and  control,  enforce,  the  orders  of  intelligence 
above.  I  do  not  so  read  our  own  or  any  other  history.  At 
all  times,  as  it  seems  to  me,  perhaps  more  appreciably  to  our 
observation  in  times  of  great  urgency  in  human  affairs,  the 
reasonings  and  generous  sentiments  of  great  intellects  work 
their  way  into  the  common  channels  of  the  general  mind, 
and  fill  the  office  of  its  directory ;  and  the  attempt  to  make 
our  own  country  an  exception  to  the  rule  is  a  suggestion  of 
flattery  which  the  people  do  not  ask,  and  an  illusion  which 
the  truth  will  not  bear.  The  nature  of  men  has  not  changed 
since  the  old  essayist  declared  that  in  the  coalition  of  human 
society  nothing  is  more  pleasing  to  God,  or  more  agreeable 
to  reason,  than  that  the  highest  mind  should  exercise  the 
chiefest  power.  If  it  were  not  so,  education  could  not  ad- 
vance upon  individuals,  nor  enlightened  progress  upon  na- 
tions. The  lower  strata  of  mind  draw  the  electric  fires  of 
the  higher  masters.  Heads  of  wisdom  are  better  than  princes 
to  a  state  passing  through  its  crises.     They  supply  intellectual 


236  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

aliment  to  its  thought,  they  impart  sympathetic  activity  to 
its  torpid  faculties. 

"  Their  speech  betimes 
Inspires  the  general  lieart  ;  its  beaut}'  steals, 
Brightening  and  purifying,  through  the  air 
Of  common  life." 

And  there  is  another  part  of  this  law  governing  public 
oj)inion,  to  which  the  whole  race  is  subject ;  I  mean  the  spon- 
taneous, instinctive  acknowledgment  of  intellectual  authority, 
the  law  of  faith,  of  confidence  in  superior  intelligence.  We 
are  all  of  us  and  always  under  such  a  lead.  Mr.  Carlyle,  who 
is  the  least  of  a  literary  demagogue,  puts  this  truth  home  to 
every  one  of  us  after  his  own  abrupt  and  grotesque  manner : 
"  Now  if  sheep  always,  how  much  more  must  men  always, 
have  their  chiefs,  their  guides.  Man,  as  if  by  miraculous 
magic,  imparts  his  thoughts,  his  mood  of  mind,  to  man.  Of 
which  high,  mysterious  truth,  this  disposition  to  imitate,  to 
lead  and  to  be  led,  this  impossibility  not  to  lead  (and  be  led), 
is  the  most  constant  and  one  of  the  simplest  manifestations." 
And  the  globe  has  not  borne  another  people  who  paid  greater 
deference  to  such  guides  than  our  own.  It  is  here  that  this 
law  of  our  nature  has  freer  and  fuller  play  than  in  the 
countries  which  are  overshadowed  by  rank  and  caste,  by  ven- 
erable heraldry  and  names  artificial,  extending  over  genera- 
tions their  charm.  While  a  single  family  and  its  aristocratical 
connections  monopolized  the  administration  of  England  during 
a  generation,  Chatham  was  admitted  to  power  only  because 
the  Almighty  had  clothed  him  with  characteristics  which 
overawed  mankind,  and  Burke  never  held  any  first-rate  office 
at  all  under  government  during  the  whole  of  his  magnificent 
life.  But  in  this  country,  rank  having  no  existence,  nothing 
else  of  conventional  kind  has  taken  its  place,  and  it  has  never 
been  possible  for  wealth,  or  any  fiction,  or  any  pretension,  to 
witlidraw  for  a  length  of  time  the  body  of  its  citizenship  from 
following  the  directory  of  wisdom.  In  the  long  run  of  time 
you  cannot  fail  to  see  that  the  hero-M'orship  of  our  countrymen 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY.      237 

takes  to  some  uncommon  degree  of  lettered  fame,  some  rare 
combination  of  intellectual  powers,  some  form  or  manifesta- 
tion of  special  genius  or  general  capacity.  Of  our  country- 
men travelling  by  thousands  in  foreign  lands,  while  one  turns 
aside  from  Brussels  to  visit  the  scene  of  the  battle  of  kings  at 
Waterloo,  ten  others  make  the  longer  journey  from  London 
to  Stratford  to  pay  the  tribute  of  their  veneration  at  the  tomb 
of  Shakespeare. 

I  return,  then,  to  my  topic,  that  in  the  dawn  of  this  national 
independency  there  was  at  work  upon  popular  opinion  a  wise, 
brilliant,  and  effective  array  of  heads  which  is  not  easily 
paralleled.  The  colleges  were  in  tune  with  the  urgency,  and 
the  pulpits  were  filled  by  a  ministry  of  patriotism  toned  by  a 
cultivated  wisdom.  The  field  of  civic  discussion  was  under 
the  training  of  a  class  of  men  in  some  of  the  colonies  who 
would  have  adorned  the  best  of  commonwealths  at  the  most 
brilliant  of  its  periods ;  the  same  representative,  scholarly 
statesmen  upon  whom  Chatham  pronounced  the  remarkable 
eulogium  which  Franklin  from  the  gallerv  heard  him  deliver, 
and  which  has  ever  since  been  quoted  with  pride  on  these 
shores.  For  a  classical,  refined  public  speech,  coming  from 
studied  men,  but  penetrating  the  universal  heart,  it  was  a 
golden  age.  It  lifted  upward  and  onward  to  action  every 
degree  of  mediocrity  below  it.  Fifty  names  start  up  for 
mention  which  cannot  be  surpassed  in  our  day.  In  the  South 
were  Paitledge,  Gadsden,  Peyton  Eandolph,  Bland,  the  two 
Lees,  most  of  them  educated  in  both  countries,  reinforced  by 
Jefferson  and  his  peers,  who  breathed  into  the  public  spirit 
their  own  cultivated  chivalry ;  in  the  centre  was  Dickinson, 
fresh  from  his  law  of  the  Temple  at  London,  finished  in  ele- 
gant literature,  whose  thoughts  passed  in  French  over  the 
other  Continent,  to  whose  support  a  little  later  came  Franklin, 
direct  from  the  society  of  Burke  and  Pitt,  bringing  his  whole 
nature  enriched  for  his  country ;  in  New  England,  too  many 
rather  than  too  few,  —  of  whom  was  Hopkins,  who  knew  all 
poetry  and  all  history,  who,  John  x4dams  said,  instructed  him 


238  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

four  years  in  committee-room  in  science  and  learning,  whose 
old  age  to  all  coming  in  contact  was  an  inspiration,  —  of  whom 
were  the  chiefs  of  Massachusetts,  whose  roll  rounds  with  the 
names  of  the  two  Adamses.  Samuel  Adams  was  something 
besides  a  pious  and  patriotic  Puritan ;  his  humanity  was  ex- 
quisite and  his  erudition  was  genteel,  blending  grace  and 
attiuction  with  the  intensity  of  his  appeal.  John  Adams 
educated  the  colonies  to  an  intelligent  comprehension  of  the 
situation  which  was  necessary  to  go  before  action,  and  in  this 
work  he  more  completely  than  any  other  man  of  this  nation 
illustrated  tlie  proverb  that  knowledge  is  powder ;  his  research 
was  boundless  and  his  talent  was  of  every  kind;  lie  made 
history  and  the  Scriptures,  the  classic,  ancient  ages,  the  prin- 
ciples of  law  and  speculative  philosophy,  familiar  to  the 
common  understanding,  while  he  rallied  the  learned  profes- 
sions and  the  schools  of  the  land  to  the  mighty  work  in  hand. 
There  were  by  that  time  as  able  lawyers  here  as  the  lawyers 
of  the  Crown,  and  he  was  at  their  head.  Scarcely  ever  before 
had  the  spirit  of  a  passing  time  called  into  such  intensity  of 
use  every  grace,  every  accomplishment  and  attribute,  of  the 
upper  sphere  of  the  human  mind,  and  never  before  had  any 
people  so  confidingly  trusted  to  it  their  hope  and  destiny. 
They  would  follow  only  the  wisest  and  best ;  in  their  vast 
undertaking  they  would  employ  no  mediocrity ;  Georgia, 
Pennsylvania,  and  Massachusetts  would  have  no  less  an 
agent  in  Loudon  than  Benjamin  Franklin ;  New  York,  with 
its  salary  of  a  thousand  dollars,  would  have  no  other  than 
Edmund  Burke.  They  believed  that  "  a  great  empire  and 
little  minds  go  ill  together."  To  which  roll  in  tlie  hour  of 
its  need  was  added  yet  another,  —  the  man  of  little  less  than 
divine  virtue,  the  Father  of  his  Country,  tlie  leader  of  her 
armies,  the  most  glorious  of  her  citizens,  the  founder  and 
protector  of  her  liberty,  he  who  despised  the  name  of  king, 
yet  himself  was  more  majestic,  whom  God  manifestly  favored, 
that  he  was  in  all  things  his  helper,  —  the  unapproached  and 
unapproachable  "Washington. 


INTELLECTUAL   LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY.      239 

Nor  alone  were  their  chiefs  upon  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
This  national  fabric  was  shaped,  in  part,  by  most  expert 
hands  of  Englishmen.  In  the  prolonged  debates  of  many 
years  there  was  a  parliamentary  minority  of  the  choicest  and 
greatest  of  the  realm,  wlio  spoke  for  justice  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  proudest  day  of  the  British  forum.  By  general 
consent  the  most  flourishing  period  of  English  eloquence 
extends  for  about  half  a  century  from  the  maturity  of  Lord 
Chatham's  genius  to  the  death  of  Fox,  and  a  good  part  of  its 
most  brilliant  exhibitions  was  during  the  ten  years  which 
covered  the  American  questions.  Between  the  opening  and 
the  close  of  those  questions  passed  across  the  stage  Grenville, 
Barre,  North,  Camden,  Mansfield,  Charles  Townshend,  Fox, 
Burke,  and  the  heaven-born  orator,  the  elder  Pitt,  —  enough 
for  a  nation's  history  and  a  nation's  glory.  The  parliamentary 
literature  of  that  school  can  meet  the  philosophical  criticisms 
of  Burke  himself;  it  can  stand  the  test  of  time  and  the  ad- 
miration of  ages,  because  it  was  founded  in  good  reason  and 
just  sentiment.  It  was  listened  to  in  the  speaking  by  some 
of  our  leaders  from  home  sitting  in  the  gallery,  among  whom 
were  Quincy  and  Franklin ;  it  came  to  these  shores  in  fast-sail- 
ing packets,  was  spread  from  the  ice-fields  to  the  palmettoes 
by  the  wide-winged  press,  was  repeated  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
floated  in  the  air.  It  Avas  not  all  upon  our  side  of  the  ques- 
tions, but  it  passed  here  under  the  hands  of  masters,  was  sifted 
of  sophism  and  error,  was  sent  forth,  stirring  grand  sentiments 
of  duty,  and  circulated,  all-inspiring,  over  the  New  World. 

Nor  again  to  the  schools  of  American  and  English  authori- 
ties alone  were  our  fathers  of  that  day  shut  in  for  their 
tuition.  From  another  continent,  another  tongue,  and  another 
religion,  they  heard  voices  of  lesson  and  sympathy.  We  are 
forever  indebted  to  France  for  an  early  and  a  late  infusion  of 
lofty  sentiment  which  has  pervaded  our  public  life.  In  the 
story  of  religious  and  romantic  adventure  displayed  in  ex- 
ploring and  settling  this  country,  the  French  enthusiasts 
stand  out  with  radiant  lineaments  upon  the  historical  canvas. 


240  ADDllESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   11.    BULLOCK. 

Advancing  always  within  tlie  orders  of  the  Catholic  church, 
penetrating  through  primeval  forests  to  the  Far  West,  endur- 
ing every  hardship  and  privation  of  pioneers,  leaving  their 
pathway  in  the  wilderness  everywhere  blazed  by  the  lily  and 
the  cross,  ministering  in  their  faith  amid  the  vortex  of  savage 
tribes  which  whirled  like  angels  of  darkness  around  them, 
one  after  another  yielding  up  their  life  in  solitary  martyrdom, 
in  the  extremest  hour  chanting  in  the  Latin  of  the  schools  of 
France  hymns  which  even  then  were  a  thousand  years  old, 
they  have  left  in  every  French  town  of  ISTorth  America,  in 
our  written  annals  and  unwritten  traditions,  the  traces  of 
their  spiritual  and  intellectual  heroism.  Expelled  at  length 
as  a  political  power  from  this  country  by  Great  Britain,  the 
Nemesis  of  liistory  took  in  hand  their  vindication.  While 
the  gallant  Wolfe,  by  a  magical  stroke,  won  to  the  British 
Crown  every  French  possession  east  of  the  Mississippi,  there 
were  those  at  work,  in  the  silence  of  studies  about  the  gay 
capital  of  France,  engineering  an  intellectual  revolution  which, 
within  twenty  years,  would  sweep  from  these  States  the  last 
vestige  of  British  dominion.  About  the  year  1763,  when 
everything  here  was  ceded  to  the  Crown  of  England,  the 
spirit  of  a  new  philosophy  was  spreading  over  France  and 
radiating  upon  Great  Britain  and  iVmerica.  To  those  who 
were  especially  engrossed  in  the  study  it  presented  itself, 
perhaps  under  no  deep  sense  of  resj^onsibility,  as  the  fresh 
luxury  of  newly  enfranchised  minds,  but  to  the  world  it  bore 
the  fruits  of  political  revolution.  The  satire  of  Voltaire,  aimed 
at  the  Clmrch  which  needed  it  much,  fell  witli  eflectual  blow 
upon  the  State  which  needed  it  more.  The  ethereal  and 
radical  eloquence  of  Eousseau  circulated  as  an  atmosphere ; 
the  young  men  crowded  the  benches  and  the  salons  of  the 
new  school  in  all  the  larger  cities  of  the  kingdom ;  and  at 
one  time,  just  before  the  declaration  of  our  independence, 
more  than  half  a  dozen  of  bold  teachers  of  speculation,  wit, 
levity,  reason,  and  philosopliy  were  seated  around  tlie  throne 
as  its  premier  and  its  advisers.    It  was  the  preparatory  school 


INTELLECTUAL   LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY.      241 

for  modern  revolution.  It  was  classical  in  its  study  of  the 
ancient  histories.  It  soon  found  its  theory  and  passion  im- 
personated in  the  youthful  Lafayette,  whose  early  readings 
had  imaged  in  his  reflection  and  love  the  models  of  lost 
republics,  and  quickly  afterward  it  found  the  seal  of  its 
assurance  in  tlie  treaty  of  alliance  with  the  United  States. 
The  authorities  of  that  keen,  speculative,  daring  philosophy 
gave  the  touch  of  fate  to  American  independence.  And 
in  the  memorable  reception  of  Benjamin  Franklin  at  Ver- 
sailles, when  that  brilliant  court,  destined  so  soon  to  pass 
away,  was  captivated  by  the  decorous  simplicity  which  the 
great  American  knew  quite  well  when  and  how  to  wear,  we 
behold  the  last  ceremony  in  which  old  institutions  and  old 
prescriptions,  represented  by  kings  and  nobles,  bowed  un- 
awares before  the  divinity  of  a  new  liberty  and  a  new  world, 
—  the  ceremony  in  which  that  new  liberty  and  new  world,  in 
its  plain,  untitled  representative,  returned  the  salute  to  the 
masters  behind  the  throne  who  were  movins;  the  world  to 
revolution.  I  have  never  wondered  that  Jefferson,  who  after 
our  peace  passed  four  grateful  years  at  Paris,  intimate  and 
favorite  with  its  eminent  pliilosophers,  caught  "  the  habit  and 
the  power  of  dalliance  with  those  large,  fair  ideas  of  freedom 
so  dear,  so  irresistible  "  to  the  French  people.  Almost  a  cen- 
tury has  since  passed,  and  his  name  is  even  now  treasured  in 
the  hearts  of  the  French  leaders  of  opinion  as  that  of  a  master 
and  instructor,  —  an  impressive  illustration  of  the  ceaseless 
international  exchange  of  thought.  Three  years  ago,  Charles 
Sumner  came  to  my  apartment  in  Paris  directly  from  an 
interview  with  the  leader  of  the  more  advanced  Eepublicaus, 
now  recognized  as  their  leader  probably  by  a  larger  number 
of  men  than  any  other  living  civilian  in  any  country,  the 
bold  and  eloquent  Gambetta.  He  related  to  me  the  details  of 
the  conversation.  Gambetta  said  :  "  What  France  most  needs 
at  this  present  time  is  a  Jefferson."  I  will  not  keep  back 
the  reply  of  the  great  Senator :  "  You  want  first  a  Wash- 
ington, and  your  Jefferson  will  come  afterwards." 

16 


242  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

My  limitations  compel  me  to  allusions  only  on  the  field  of 
our  history.  We  usually  observe  that  the  times  requiring  the 
largest  exercise  of  the  intellectual  forces,  and  so  bringing  into 
activity  the  supremest  men,  have  been  periods  of  civil,  not  of 
military  events,  those  preceding  or  following  the  trial  of  war. 
Succeeding  to  the  Revolution  came  the  exigent  time  for  or- 
ganizing under  permanent  forms,  —  the  constitutional  epoch. 
That  term  of  seven  years  was  the  test  to  virtue,  to  the  capacity 
for  outlook  and  statesmanly  projection,  without  the  aid  of 
any  light  reflected  from  older  nations  upon  the  questions  to 
be  adjusted  here.  If  you  reflect  how  divided  this  people  were 
after  the  attainment  of  independence,  —  that  all  local  tradi- 
tions, prejudices,  and  attachments  which  had  been  buried  in 
the  war,  then  returned  with  a  risen  life  and  vigor;  that 
diversities  of  origin,  blood,  and  temperament  resumed  their 
individual  forces ;  that  idiocrasies  of  religion  became  sympa- 
thetic with  localities ;  that  the  vast  bulwarks  of  the  natural 
configuration  of  the  continent  frowned  in  the  way  of  our 
unity,  —  you  only  recall  in  part  the  division  and  distress  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States  under  the  Confederation.  It 
soon  grew  to  a  public  opinion  which  alternated  between 
national  hope  and  national  despair.  The  Convention  which 
assembled  in  1787  to  organize  the  fragmentary  elements 
which  now  constitute  the  most  intense  nation  in  existence, 
over  which  Washington  presided,  was  in  a  capacious  civic 
wisdom  superior  to  any  other  of  modern  record,  —  superior, 
in  my  judgment,  to  that  which  had  met  in  the  same  hall 
twelve  years  before,  upon  which  Pitt  had  lavished  his  rhetoric 
of  praise.  Washington  carried  there  a  carefully  prepared 
synopsis  of  the  ancient  examples,  but  amid  the  great  ques- 
tions and  great  debaters  that  surrounded  him  there  is  no 
evidence  that  he  ever  unrolled  his  manuscript.  In  the  lead 
of  the  discussions  South  Carolina,  Virginia,  Pennsylvania,  and 
New  York  figured  with  unchallenged  supremacy.  And  when, 
afterward,  the  work  of  that  body  was  submitted  for  the  con- 
sent of  the  several  States,  the  debate  in  popular  meetings  and 


INTELLECTUAL   LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY.      243 

in  State  conventions  summoned  to  the  front  every  giant 
mind.  The  scales  were  turned  at  last  by  the  pure  argumenta- 
tion of  two  men.  I  have  sometimes  asked  myself  whether, 
under  similar  surroundings  in  our  own  day,  beset  with  the 
same  excitement  and  irritation,  the  present  generation  would 
in  the  same  degree  as  that  submit  its  judgment  to  the  sway 
of  a  series  of  papers  so  calm,  passionless,  and  dialectical  as 
those  which,  under  the  name  of  The  Federalist,  Madison  and 
Hamilton,  but  chiefly  the  latter,  addressed  to  their  country. 
With  equal,  with  greater  effect,  Madison  in  the  Convention 
of  Virginia,  Hamilton  in  that  of  New  York,  made  their  great 
endowments  tributary  to  the  solemn  decision.  Madison  was 
born  symmetrical  for  the  highest  dignities  of  the  statesman, 
and  culture  completed  the  work ;  sound  learning  was  added 
to  a  sound  judgment,  and  his  mind  was  illuminated  for  per- 
spicacity and  far  perspective.  He,  and  he  alone,  saved  the 
government  in  Virginia,  where,  though  young  in  years,  he 
was  already  a  popular  idol.  The  issue  hung  suspended  upon 
New  York,  the  last,  the  eleventh  State  which  was  necessary 
to  make  plenary  the  consent  and  ratification,  where  it  was 
carried  after  immense  exertions.  All  contemporary  accounts 
and  traditions  still  existing  carry  to  the  credit  of  Hamilton 
that  imperial  result.  He  was  then  thirty-one  years  of  age,  in 
the  bloom  of  his  faculties,  the  finest  genius  known  to  Ameri- 
can public  life.  His  ingenuous  nature  and  exquisite  sensi- 
bility, from  a  Huguenot  descent ;  the  unshackled  outline  and 
clear  order  of  his  thought,  warmed  to  color  by  the  fervor  of  a 
tropical  birth ;  the  flexibility,  simplicity,  and  delicious  amenity 
of  his  style,  as  pure  as  Addison's ;  his  far-distant  search  and 
reach ;  his  climacteric  ascending  in  argument ;  his  judgment, 
which  Washington  said  was  "  intuitively  great,"  —  displayed 
him  in  his  public  efforts  as  one  of  nature's  thinkers,  orators, 
jurists,  and  statesmen.  For  an  entire  generation,  not  ending 
at  his  death,  he  was  to  one  half  of  his  countrymen  the  inter- 
preter of  his  era.  He  was  a  leader  who  never  flattered  his 
followers.     To  him,  by  consent  of  all,  the  civic  chaplet  falls 


244  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEX.VNDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

for  tlie  decision  which  gave  this  government  to  the  North 
American  liepublic.  In  the  wandering  of  a  boy  from  college, 
straying  many  years  ago  among  the  tombstones  which  mark 
the  ancient  worthies  of  New  Jersey,  in  the  churchyard  at 
Princeton,  I  stood  by  the  side  of  a  newly  made  grave,  which 
bore  as  yet  no  trace  of  designation  at  its  head.  Ikit  I  could 
not  be  ignorant  as  to  its  tenant  after  reading  the  inscription 
over  the  adjoining  spot' of  earth  consecrated  to  the  sleeping 
dust  of  his  kinsman,  his  ancestor,  the  glorified  Edwards.  It 
was  the  ijrave  of  Aaron  Burr.  "  At  the  mention  of  that  name 
the  spirit  of  Hamilton  starts  up  to  rebuke  the  intrusion,  —  to 
drive  back  the  foul  apparition  to  its  gloomy  abode,  and  to 
concentrate  all  generous  feeling  on  itself" 

I  can  illustrate  my  subject  by  only  a  brief  allusion  to  our 
next  and  longer  historical  stage  which  followed  under  the 
Constitution.  It  was  the  era  of  development,  bringing  to  the 
direction  of  the  public  life  of  this  country  all  tliat  splendid 
succession  which  opened  with  Marshall  and  Hamilton,  Jeffer- 
son and  Madison,  and  closed  with  the  death  of  Clay  and 
Calhoun,  John  Quincy  Adams,  Webster,  and  Everett,  —  an 
array  not  surpassed  in  recent  time  by  the  chiefs  of  English 
administration.  It  is  familiar  to  many  now  living  how  trust- 
ingly the  people  hung  upon  their  lips  and  took  their  direction 
in  all  the  policies  of  growth  and  expansion.  But  it  was  a 
stage  of  greater  signification  than  mere  development ;  it  was 
our  historical  period  of  interpretation.  As  you  know,  at  the 
close  of  Washington's  active  day  all  the  questions  and  possi- 
bilities of  questions  touching  the  interpretation  of  the  Consti- 
tution, which  had  been  hushed  in  his  sacred  presence,  flcM' 
into  ceaseless  activity,  and  with  only  an  occasional  interval 
continued  to  excite  the  general  mind  down  to  1860,  when  the 
sword  became  the  arbiter.  During  that  protracted  discussion 
and  discordancy  the  treatment  of  the  subject  assumed  the 
highest  forms  of  philosophical  argument,  and  called  into  use 
the  blended  acuteness  and  breadth  of  jurists  and  statesmen. 
The  existence  of  the  government  would  be  determined  by  the 


INTELLECTUAL   LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY.      245 

settlement  of  that  question  of  interpretation,  so  complex,  so 
profound,  in  many  respects  so  metaphysical  in  its  kind,  that 
the  people  by  whom  it  must  be  settled  were  largely  com- 
pelled to  accept  upon  faith  the  opinions  of  their  champions ; 
the  grander  the  leadership,  the  more  trustful  the  following. 
It  narrowed  down  at  length  to  but  two  men,  of  whom  it  may 
be  said  that  one  of  them  argued  the  country  into  the  greatest 
of  modern  wars,  and  that  the  other  prepared  it  for  a  success- 
ful deliverance.  Since  the  deatli  of  Washington,  Jefferson, 
and  Hamilton  no  two  men  have  held  the  intellectual  trust  of 
such  large  numbers  and  over  so  many  years  as  Calhoun  and 
Webster  pending  the  questions  of  constitutional  interpreta- 
tion, Calhoun  was  the  master  of  his  school.  Exemplar  of 
high,  attracting  personal  qualities,  eloquent  with  a  logic 
which  was  made  fervid  by  intensity  of  conviction,  reasoning 
unerringly  from  his  elements  and  rejecting  every  expedient  or 
phenomenal  modification,  bringing  to  questions  of  construc- 
tion the  cold  and  unrelenting  methods  of  science  regardless 
of  the  assistant  or  opposing  forces  of  practical  reasons,  he 
towered  above  his  associates  in  belief,  and  was  followed  by 
the  undiscriminating  ranks  that  sometimes  understood  and 
always  trusted  him.  I  do  not  believe  we  should  have  had 
the  late  war  if  he  had  lived,  but  his  death  left  his  school  to 
drift  into  it  upon  the  teachings  of  his  lifetime.  The  vindica- 
tion of  the  government  by  tlie  sword  in  last  resort  must  be 
traced  as  the  logical  result  of  the  opposite  school,  over  which 
his  great  rival  presided.  I  do  not  overlook  that  Webster  had 
profound  and  luminous  associates  in  his  high  argument  of 
twenty  years  for  the  true  doctrine  of  the  government,  yet  he 
was  the  acknowledged  leader,  the  accepted  champion  and 
defender  of  the  Constitution.  And  now  that  the  rebellion  is 
by  both  sides  conceded  a  failure,  now  that  the  principles 
which  he  maintained  are  by  both  sides  admitted  as  a  finality 
by  trial  of  war,  it  is  becoming  to  our  intelligence  and 
magnanimity  to  recognize  the  champion  of  the  faith  which 
carried  us  through.     For  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that 


246  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   11.    BULLOCK. 

before  the  shedding  of  blood  it  was  under  his  ehicidation  that 
the  consolidation  of  the  Union  had  become  so  assured  in  the 
convictions  and  affections  of  the  people  as  to  have  prepared 
them  for  the  conflict.  To  him,  above  others,  we  owe  that 
sentiment  of  nationalism  prevailing  over  statism,  which  be- 
came compacted  and  unified  with  the  very  fibre  of  the  Amer- 
ican people,  and  without  wliich  the  Union  would  have  parted 
at  the  touch  of  arms.  He  first  made  familiar  to  modern 
ears  the  principles  upon  which  alone  the  government  could 
live ;  and  his  pupils,  his  followers,  were  attached  to  the  ma- 
jority which  upheld  it  to  the  last.  It  is  time  that  all  fair 
minds  should  turn  from  tlie  cloud  which  shaded  his  closincj 
days,  to  a  full  perception  of  his  instructions,  which  now  shine 
with  advancing  splendor  in  the  Constitution  he  defended. 
And  in  their  enjoyment  of  the  fresh,  the  final  triumph  of 
their  government,  which  his  active  genius  made  doubly  sure, 
if  a  just  and  grateful  people  shall  divide  its  honors  between 
the  leaders  of  its  thought  and  the  leaders  of  its  armies,  as 
England  divided  her  honors  between  Pitt  and  Wellington, 
then  henceforth  words  of  reproach  scattered  by  careless 
tongue  over  the  grave  of  Webster  will  no  longer  be  accepted 
as  the  language  of  duty  or  justice,  but  will  be  treated  with 
only  that  degree  of  respect  which  belongs  to  ingratitude,  to 
flippancy,  and  to  folly. 

But  it  is  time  to  draw  these  reflections  to  a  close.  I  must 
not  even  glance  at  the  later  —  perhaps  loftier  —  part  of  our 
history,  fresh  in  all  our  hearts  as  to  its  causes  and  its  results, 
its  immortal  deeds  and  immortal  actors.  Let  it  all  pass  for 
another  occasion.  A  duty  remains  for  each  generation  of 
intelligent,  educated  citizens.  The  day  of  intellectual  guid- 
ance never  goes  by.  All  these  agencies  and  methods  of  a 
more  diffused  intellectual  life,  all  these  potent  influences  of  a 
more  distributed  education  over  more  numerous  gradations  of 
intelligence,  only  render  essential  a  higher  standard  for  the 
higher  masters.  The  advanced  seminaries  will  still  continue 
the  advanced  guard  of  a  well-sustained  nationality  and  liberty. 


INTELLECTUAL   LEADERSHIP   IN   AMERICAN    HISTORY.      247 

Although  the  wants  of  the  age  have  spurred  into  activity  the 
wonderful  divisions  and  subdivisions  of  sciences  and  arts, 
and  although  the  colleges  must  measurably  pass  under  the 
change,  yet  so  long  as  the  springs  of  the  human  soul  remain, 
a  broad  and  liberal  culture,  all  the  generous  sentiments  which 
sciences  can  neither  generate  nor  suppress,  the  inspiring 
study  of  old  language  and  old  history,  the  freedom  of  general 
learning,  the  increasing  catholicity  of  modern  ethics,  will  still 
plead  at  the  door  of  every  college  in  the  land  for  that  suste- 
nance upon  which  so  many  past  leaders  have  thriven  to  use- 
fulness and  power.  There  are  still  juices  in  the  old-time 
study  for  the  best  manhood  of  a  nation.  The  colleges  would 
be  the  last,  the  forlorn  hope  of  a  decaying  people.  It  is  our 
reasonable  expectation  that  this  Union  will  last  through  the 
ages ;  but  if  in  the  providence  of  God,  which  stretches  beyond 
our  sight,  its  unity  and  glory  shall  ever  pass  away,  let  the 
last  signal  which  shall  be  heard  in  its  praise  and  defence 
come  from  the  chiming  bells  of  its  universities. 


ADDRESS 

DELIVERED    AT    MUSIC    HALL,    BOSTON,   FEB.   8,   1876,   ON  THE  CHARACTER  OF 

DR.   SAMUEL  G.   HOVTE. 

Accustomed  as  we  have  been  to  pay  these  public  honors 
to  the  dead,  if  I  am  not  altogether  mistaken,  friends  and 
fellow-citizens,  this  occasion  is  unlike  others  which  have 
preceded  it.  I  do  not  recall  another  resembling  it  in  the 
quality  of  its  personal  reminiscences.  It  is  an  occasion  for 
a  rare  kind  of  personal  homage.  It  is  for  no  eminent  Sena- 
tor or  Vice-President,  falling  with  the  robes  of  office  still 
about  him,  and  affecting  the  emotions  of  a  nation  that  had 
been  his  auditory,  but  it  is  for  a  man  fallen  in  the  daily 
work  of  half  a  century  in  paths  of  life  which  are  shunned  by 
most  of  mankind,  who  was  unknown  in  the  field  and  the 
forum,  yet  was  distinguished  in  all  Christian  lands  as  a  master 
self-consecrated  to  humanity.  His  title  stands  apart,  and  is 
of  his  own  unconscious  winning,  —  the  title  of  Philanthro- 
pist. In  the  last  hundred  years  only  one  man  in  Great 
Britain  has  been  selected  to  wear  that  honor  as  exclusively 
his  own.  Other  Englishmen  of  perhaps  greater  celebrity 
have  left  a  splendid  fame  for  their  generous  devotion,  —  Fox 
for  his  devotion  to  the  very  sound  of  liberty;  AVilberforce 
to  negro  emancipation;  Piomilly  and  Mackintosh  to  civil 
and  social  reform.  But  their  life  was  so  largely  a  forensic 
tournament,  in  which  they  won  crowns  for  themselves,  tlieir 
distinction  in  philosophy  and  eloquence  w^as  so  large  a  share 
of  their  renown,  that  their  names  have  usually  been  remitted 
to  the  roll  of  statesmen  and  orators. 


DR.   SAMUEL  G.   HOWE.  249 


But  there  was  one  —  another  Englishman  —  whose  labors 
of  mercy,  sustained  by  none  of  the  ordinary  stimulants  of 
ambition,  were  so  obviously  and  solely  for  the  good  of  the 
race,  followed  by  a  rich  harvest  to  his  fellow-men,  that  the 
encyclopsedias  will  perpetuate  for  ages  the  name  of  Howard 
as  synonymous  with  philanthropist.  We  ourselves  have  had 
more  than  one  man  who  has  been  designated  in  his  day  as 
the  Massachusetts  Senator,  —  more  than  one  who  has  been 
called  her  orator,  her  historian,  her  poet,  —  yet  I  am  per- 
suaded that  beyond  the  time  of  this  generation  the  name  of 
Samuel  Gridley  Howe  will  be  pronounced,  as  we  now  pro- 
nounce it,  by  special  eminence,  the  Massachusetts  Philanthro- 
pist. And  surely  the  Commonwealth  could  not  rejoice  in  a 
higher  or  nobler  title  for  one  of  her  sons.  It  is  the  highest 
of  all  earthly  distinctions,  for  it  is  the  word  the  mention  of 
which  gives  him  his  place  in  the  hearts  of  all  men,  —  a 
word  which  represents  character  and  deeds  that  are  not  sub- 
ject to  the  taste  or  culture  of  an  age,  but  are  unchangeable 
for  example  and  contemplation.  Nor  can  we  better  dis- 
charge the  duty  of  this  hour,  than  by  fastening  upon  his 
memory  the  title  which  shall  carry  to  the  schools  of  the 
State,  to  all  the  walks  of  life,  whether  of  study  or  business 
or  leisure,  —  to  all  the  ambitions  and  activities  of  this  won- 
derful people,  suggestions  and  inspirations  for  consecration 
to  the  welfare  of  the  race,  —  the  title  of  the  Massachusetts 
Philanthropist. 

The  future  career  of  the  philanthroj)ist  was  prefigured  in 
the  young  man  of  twenty-three.  At  this  distance  of  fifty 
years  from  that  remarkable  outburst  of  sympathy  which 
directed  so  many  minds  toward  the  Greek  Eevolution,  the 
glare  and  romance  which  then  surrounded  the  scene  and 
the  actors  have  given  place  to  the  cool  judgment  of  history. 
Military  adventurers  thronged  from  all  parts  of  the  Conti- 
nent to  the  theatre  of  the  war,  with  the  usual  result ;  and 
before  Lord  Byron  set  out  from  Genoa,  he  saw  enough  of 
disappointed  and  returned  officers  to  check  the  enthusiasm 


250  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   11.    BULLOCK. 

of  a  less  resolute  spirit  than  his  own.  There  were  two  per- 
sons, however,  who  did  go  to  remain.  JJyron  was  the  illus- 
trious over  all  whom  the  societies  in  England  contributed 
to  that  service.  Superannuated  with  pleasure  and  sorrow 
at  thirty-six,  liis  hair  already  turned  gray,  and  his  heart 
withered,  he  enlisted  for  a  new  life  and  new  glory  with 
a  resolution  and  zeal  which  led  the  pathway  of  the  poet  to 
his  martyrdom.  There  was  no  sham  or  illusion  about  his 
purpose.  But  to  all  of  that  zeal  Dr.  Howe  brought  the 
added  freshness  and  purity  of  youth,  with  the  calculation 
and  firmness  of  manhood.  In  his  going,  I  do  not  so  much 
observe  the  knight-errantry.  I  behold  him,  rather,  then  first 
developing  a  heaven-born  genius  for  serving  his  fellow-men ; 
I  see  him  at  that  early  day  overcoming  the  law  of  nature 
which  makes  us  cold  to  the  relations  of  distant  misery. 

He  remained  to  the  end ;  and  it  was  one  of  tlie  brief  and 
happily  completed  periods  of  history  which  found  the  com- 
bined fleets  of  the  Christian  powers  of  Europe  engaging  in 
the  battle  of  Navarino  to  enforce  the  same  rules  which  the 
illustrious  representative  of  Massachusetts  in  Congress  had 
so  eloquently  demanded  four  years  before,  and  which  also 
found  at  the  same  moment,  among  the  military  forces  on 
the  land,  another  young  brave  soul  of  Massachusetts  co- 
operating in  arms.  It  was  the  period  of  test  and  trial  to  our 
departed  friend ;  and  the  record  of  his  six  years  in  Greece 
has  significance  and  value,  because  it  is  the  record  of  a  young 
man  struggling  in  earnest  for  the  cause  of  the  oppressed.  I 
conceive  that  fancy  had  little  to  do  with  his  enlistment. 
No  doul)t,  as  he  approached  the  land  of  his  service,  its  an- 
cient and  heroic  annals  rose  in  his  imagination,  —  its  story 
and  song ;  its  waters,  on  which  he  was  soon  to  battle  as 
the  great  had  battled  before ;  its  temples,  wliich  he  had  read 
of  and  was  so  soon  to  behold ;  its  mountains,  under  crown  of 
snow  and  flush  of  sunset,  —  but  tliese  were  only  the  acces- 
sories in  the  picture.  His  mind  rested  on  the  darker  and 
sterner   background  of  privation  and   hunger  and  sickness 


DR.    SAMUEL   G.    HOWE.  251 

and  personal  peril ;  but  over  them  all,  of  duty  to  dare  and 
endure  for  the  rescue  of  a  down-trodden  portion  of  his  kind. 
Nothing  short  of  this  high  conception  and  purpose  could  have 
borne  him  through  those  lengthened  years  of  trial  and  ex- 
posure, —  in  the  cock-pit,  the  ambulance,  and  the  liospital ; 
in  guerilla  bands  on  land,  and  through  every  gradation  on 
deck;  in  soliciting  and  distributing  charity;  in  the  labors 
of  colonizing  a  disorganized  people  ;  through  all  the  mingled 
functions,  from  a  constable  to  a  commander-in-chief  of  a 
colony,  —  until  at  length,  after  six  years,  disease  drove  him 
from  the  country,  and  sent  him  back  to  his  profession.  Now, 
if  there  be  any  school  of  experience  in  which  a  man's  bent 
is  confirmed  and  fixed,  certainly  he  was  returned  to  us  from 
such  a  field  strengthened  in  his  higli  motive  and  purpose, 
trained  and  inured  for  the  work  which  his  destiny  had  as- 
signed to  him. 

His  Excellency,  who  now  presides  over  our  expanded  plan 
of  State  charities,  was  a  mere  lad  forty-five  years  ago,  when 
as  yet  in  the  beauty  of  his  youth  our  lamented  citizen  gave 
to  the  unorganized  system  the  first  quickening  of  a  visible 
life.  Within  the  space  of  three  years,  from  1829  to  1833,  an 
organization  of  the  humane  sentiments  of  this  community 
sprang  into  existence,  and  was  followed  by  results  which  have 
not  been  surpassed  in  the  history  of  benevolence.  It  is  known 
that  there  were  twenty-five  thousand  blind  persons  in  Great 
Britain,  that  tliere  was  a  large  but  unascertained  number  in 
this  Christian  Commonwealth ;  and  a  desire  to  methodize  some 
measures  of  relief  began  to  stir  in  many  hearts.  We  were 
about  to  take  the  lead  on  a  broad  scale  in  this  country  in 
bearing  light  into  the  abodes  of  shadow,  and  the  leaders  were 
found  who  were  worthy  of  the  enterprise.  Fisher  and  Brooks 
had  opened  the  books  for  subscription.  Prescott,  then  groping 
his  way  in  partial  blindness  to  works  of  imperishable  fame,  by 
writing  up  the  theme  in  the  "  North  American  lieview,"  had 
awakened  a  generous  concern  in  the  circles  of  affluence  and  cul- 
ture.     But  the  work  was  still  languishing  for  a  great  giver,  the 


252  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEX.VNDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

chances  were  at  a  balance,  when  the  more  than  princely  mer- 
chant, Thomas  Handasyd  Perkins,  put  his  munificent  hand  into 
the  scale.  And  still  the  master  genius  was  wanting  who  could 
and  who  would  execute  the  sublime  work,  when  Howe  offered 
his  life  service  to  the  education  and  elevation  of  the  blind.  I 
need  not  ask  you  who  take  pride  in  Boston,  you  who  take  pride 
in  Massachusetts,  —  I  need  not  ask  you  whether  in  all  New 
England,  whether  in  any  State,  humanity  ever  gathered  to  its 
assistance  a  nobler  group  or  a  more  brilliant  staff".  Some  of 
us  remember  both  of  those  two  central  figures,  Perkins  and 
Howe  ;  so  unlike  in  their  education  and  avocations,  yet  linked 
in  our  annals  by  an  enduring  tie  of  beneficence,  themselves 
have  joined  in  a  union  that  can  never  be  broken  the  practical 
and  ideal  Boston.  When  I  first  saw  Colonel  Perkins,  then 
an  old  man,  his  face  seemed  itself  an  institution  of  benevo- 
lence ;  or,  at  least,  I  could  say  of  him,  as  the  great  Spanish 
romancer  said  of  one  of  his  characters,  that  his  countenance 
was  a  benediction.  He  has  been  dead  more  than  twenty 
years,  and  only  a  small  part  of  this  generation  have  known 
anything  about  him.  But  you  and  I,  your  Excellency,  having 
some  occasion  for  being  acquainted  with  the  magnificent  body 
of  humanities  with  which  his  name  is  connected,  could  not 
stand  by  the  grave  of  his  associate  in  benevolence  and  not 
recall  him  to  our  fellow-citizens. 

It  is  not  for  me,  within  these  limitations,  to  expatiate  at 
length  upon  the  service  rendered  by  Dr.  Howe  in  his  chosen 
department  of  life  work.  He  accepted  it  as  his  mission  with 
the  same  alacrity  with  which  the  average  graduate  of  the 
school  reaches  out  for  fame  or  fortune.  He  made  his  venture, 
with  what  special  genius  or  fitness  no  one  then  could  say, 
though  the  world  now  knows,  into  the  field  of  darkness,  to 
which  he  was  soon  to  add  the  field  of  science.  In  that  field, 
comprising  at  once  the  wide  range  of  philosophical  analysis 
and  practical  development,  he  became  the  authority  on  this 
side  of  the  water;  and  lie  has  given  to  the  Massachusetts 
school  the  foremost  rank  among  the  twenty  other  institutions 


DR.    SAMUEL   G.    HOWE.  253 

of  the  same  kind,  more  or  less,  —  Mr.  Sanborn  can  tell  us 
how  many  there  are,  —  which  have  sprung  up  on  these  shores 
under  his  leading. 

This  great  success  in  establishing  what  may  be  called  a 
structure  of  national  humanity  has  been  his  work.  But 
great  as  it  appears  in  its  present  proportions,  it  was  greatest 
in  the  be<Tinning.  Now,  when  the  whole  subject  has  become 
familiar  to  the  common  apprehension,  men  little  understand 
the  patience  and  devotion  which  was  necessary  at  the  com- 
mencement. How  many  would  have  turned  away  from  the 
first  experiment !  But  he  took  for  his  encouragement  the 
truth  expressed  by  Prescott  in  such  words  of  pathos,  that 
"  the  glimmering  of  the  taper  which  is  lost  in  the  blaze  of 
day  may  be  sufficient  to  guide  the  steps  of  him  whose  paths 
lie  through  darkness."  There  is  nothing  in  the  recorded 
manifestations  of  sympathy  or  of  poetry  which  surpasses  in 
interest  the  character  of  his  early  experiments,  in  almost 
creating  a  new  sense  for  an  immortal  mind.  The  great 
modern  delineator  of  the  miseries  of  the  unfortunate  and  the 
glories  of  charity,  Mr.  Dickens,  in  his  reminiscences  of  the 
South  Boston  Institution,  has  depicted  those  solemn  efforts 
of  Dr.  Howe  in  the  colors  of  truth  laid  by  his  art.  He  was 
original  and  without  an  equal  in  raising  deafness,  dumbness, 
and  blindness  combined  to  a  perfect  use  of  human  language. 
He  invented  an  alphabet,  and  advanced  step  by  step  through 
all  the  ingenuities  of  tangible  typography.  He  imparted  a 
vision  of  the  Divine  Being,  and  gave  a  New  Testament  which 
the  sightless  may  read.  He  took  up  the  conception  of 
Milton,  who  knew  both  sight  and  blindness,  that  the  Al- 
mighty appears  to  cast  gloom  over  the  blind,  not  so  much 
by  deprivation  of  sight,  as  by  the  shadow  of  the  Divine 
wings,  — "  nectam  oculorum  hebetudine  quam  ccelestium 
alarum  umbra  has  nobis  fecisse  tenebras  videtur," — and  even 
that  shadow  he  sought  to  irradiate.  I  ought  rather  to  say, 
that  he  turned  away  from  the  sad  spirit  of  Milton,  expressed 
in  his  Latin,  and  that  by  new  methods  of  printing  and  new 


254  ADDllESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

methods  of  instruction  he  made  attainable  to  his  Llind  con- 
stituents the  more  cheering  invocation  of  the  same  great 
poet,  expressed  in  his  own  English,  — 

"  So  much  the  rather  thou,  Celestial  Light, 
Shine  inward,  and  the  mind  through  all  her  powers 
Irradiate." 

By  his  example  and  instructions  through  all  these  years, 
Dr.  Howe  taught  the  State  to  reverence  human  nature  in 
every  individual  being.  I  have  sometimes  thought  that  it  is 
one  of  the  defects  which  ought  to  be  expected  under  our 
large  freedom,  that  the  government  might  be  in  danger  of 
overlooking  the  individual,  —  all  persons  being  free,  and  sup- 
posed to  take  care  of  themselves ;  government  being  restricted 
in  its  duties,  and  parting  with  somewhat  of  its  parental 
character.  This  teacher,  who  has  been  so  long  at  the  head 
of  the  eleemosynary  departments  of  the  Commonwealth,  has 
done  a  great  deal  to  correct  this  defect.  He  began  and  ended 
with  the  individual.  A  hundred  years  hence,  he  will  be  cited 
—  Massachusetts  will  be  cited  —  in  all  Christian  countries, 
for  his  exertions  in  a  single  case  upon  a  single  individual. 

Eeverence  for  human  nature,  as  represented  in  every  child 
of  God,  lay  at  the  foundation  of  his  work  ;  and  he,  more  tlian 
anybody  else,  has  made  it  the  foundation  of  the  noblest 
structure  of  charities  which  any  American  State  has  organ- 
ized. He  began  forty  years  ago  by  taking  up  as  worthy  of 
his  daily  care,  and  worthy  of  the  care  and  aid  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, "  a  silent,  helpless,  hopeless  unit  of  mortality ; "  he 
followed  up  the  case,  and  induced  the  State  to  follow  it  to  the 
day  of  his  death  ;  and  the  seal  of  his  last  will  bids  her  live  un- 
der tliat  same  protection  after  he  is  dead  and  gone.  That  is 
the  principle  upon  which  our  charities  rest. 

The  life  and  well-being  of  all  are  inseparably  connected 
witli  the  welfare 'of  the  individual.  Tlie  l)loom  and  vigor 
of  the  whole  people  can  only  be  real  and  lasting  as  they  are 
shared  by  every  class.  You  can  infuse  freshness  and  strength 
into  the  State  only  as  you  infuse  freshness  and  strength  into 


DR.    SAMUEL   G.    HOWE.  255 

the  tie  which  connects  the  State  with  every  individual.  That 
has  become  the  doctrine  of  Massachusetts.  That  is  the  doc- 
trine which  upholds  our  system  of  reliefs  and  reforms,  of  edu- 
cation and  charities,  which  has  grown  up  under  the  tuition 
and  practice  I  have  described,  until  it  now  attracts  inquiry 
from  foreign  lands. 

In  a  single  year  I  remember  to  have  received,  at  the 
Executive  Chamber  of  the  State  House,  letters  of  this  charac- 
ter from  two  governments  of  Europe  and  from  one  in  South 
America.  But  we  have  not  come  to  this  without  the  study 
and  efforts  of  men  whose  hearts  were  heroic,  and  whose  lives 
were  dedicated  to  the  race.  The  first  State  lunatic  hospital, 
the  creation  of  Horace  Mann,  was  opened  about  tlie  same 
time  that  the  Institution  at  South  Boston  opened  its  doors  to 
his  friend  of  college  days,  whose  name  we  honor  this  evening. 
They  have  both  gone  away  from  us ;  but  let  us  devoutly 
trust  that  their  works  may  not  follow  them.  Wherever  you 
may  trench,  still  spare  the  temple  of  our  charities,  erected, 
enlarged,  and  embellished  over  this  half-century  by  the  open- 
hearted  and  open-handed  of  this  munificent  city,  —  by  the 
culture,  the  grace,  and  the  virtue  of  the  best  sons  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. If  there  are  those  whose  hearts  and  hands  are 
cold  for  want  of  destructive  occupation,  I  still  pray  they  may 
not  gain  friction  and  warmth  by  hacking  at  tlie  monuments 
of  Perkins  and  of  Lyman,  of  Dwight  and  of  Clarke,  of  Mann 
and  of  Howe. 

But  it  is  impossible  that  we  should  here  pass  in  review  so 
long  and  varied  a  life.  That  life  is  not  a  paragraph  nor  a 
chapter ;  it  is  a  history,  of  constantly  added  scenes  of  philan- 
thropic adventure  and  of  constantly  added  phases  of  character. 
It  takes  us  to  Greece,  and  the  College  of  France,  and  the 
prisons  of  Prussia ;  over  more  than  twoscore  years  in  daily 
walks  to  the  Institution  at  South  Boston ;  through  courses  of 
investigation  which  led  to  the  establishment  of  schools  for 
the  feeble-minded ;  through  inquiries  and  efforts,  never  given 
over,  to  improve  the  administration  of  prisons,  and  to  give 


256  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.   BULLOCK. 

a  fair  chance  before  God  and  man  to  the  released  prisoner ; 
over  a  constantly  manifested  care  for  neglected  children  and 
youthful  offenders ;  into  long  counselling  and  co-oi3eration 
for  the  cause  of  general  education ;  to  his  humane  assist- 
ance—  known  to  his  Maker,  but  kept  a  secret  from  his  Gov- 
ernment —  for  the  escape  of  the  fugitive  slave  ;  to  his  interest 
in  the  war  of  freedom,  and  his  service  on  the  sanitary  board  in 
smoothing  the  pillow  of  the  soldier ;  to  his  mission  after  the 
war  to  inspect  the  condition  of  the  redeemed ;  and  at  length, 
a  few  years  before  his  death,  back  again  across  the  Atlantic 
to  bear  food  to  a  starving  people ;  and  wherever  this  history 
takes  us,  and  wherever  we  find  him,  we  see  a  free  and  true 
man,  without  fear  or  favor  of  his  kind,  saying,  not  in  words, 
of  which  he  was  chary,  but  in  deeds,  with  which  he  abounded, 
"  Behold,  I  am  here,  Lord  !  " 

It  would  be  an  omission  in  my  memory  of  an  official  con- 
nection with  him,  extended  over  three  years,  if  I  were  not  to 
bear  my  testimony  to  his  almost  ubiquitous  attendance  on 
his  work ;  he  was  at  South  Boston,  he  was  at  his  office  in 
town,  he  was  at  the  rooms  of  the  Board  of  Charities,  he  was 
at  the  Executive  Chamber,  he  was  sometimes  at  his  own 
house,  he  was  always  where  duty  called.  He  seemed  capable 
to  drive  all  the  reforms  and  charities  abreast,  and  yet  he 
was  seldom  on  a  strain ;  always  having  an  air  we  all  liked  of 
a  man  of  business,  of  a  man  of  the  world,  what  Carlyle  would 
call  "a  good,  broad,  buffeting  way  of  procedure;"  of  daunt- 
less force  of  character,  of  firmness  that  was  impassive,  of 
modesty  that  was  unfeigned ;  a  little  mutinous  whenever 
governors  attempted  to  interfere  with  his  methods,  but  that 
was  of  no  consequence  since  he  was  mutinous  to  revolt 
whenever  he  saw  the  image  of  God  oppressed  or  wronged  or 
neglected.  Nor  will  I  leave  him  without  an  allusion  to  his 
last  great  work.  I  refer  to  his  association  with  a  few  other 
gentlemen  —  more  active  in  this  than  he  was,  whose  names  I 
might  call  if  some  of  them  were  not  present  —  in  organizing, 
I  may  say  in  establishing,  under  the  endowment  of  Clarke  that 


DR.    SAMUEL   G.    HOWE.  257 

noble  institution  on  the  banks  of  ^he  Connecticut,  where  the 
deaf  and  dumb  learn  to  discern  a  voice  from  a  mute  breath, 
to  catch  human  language  at  sight  from  human  lips.  I  look 
to  that  institution  with  perfect  assurance  of  the  greatest  re- 
sults, and  I  recur  not  without  sensibility  to  the  days  when 
we  thought  him  essential  to  iis  in  laying  its  foundations. 

Over  the  tomb  of  the  philanthropist  I  would  not  hang  out 
his  insignia  of  the  Greek  Legion  of  Honor,  nor  his  cross  of 
Malta,  nor  his  medal  of  Prussia.  I  would  instead  record 
there  the  words  of  Ednmnd  Burke,  applied  by  him  to  John 
Howard  and  his  mission  :  — 

"  He  penetrated  into  the  depths  of  dungeons ;  he  phanged  into 
the  infections  of  hospitals ;  he  surveyed  the  mansions  of  sorrow 
and  pain ;  he  took  the  gauge  and  dimensions  of  misery,  depres- 
sion, and  contempt ;  he  remembered  the  forgotten,  he  attended 
to  the  neglected,  he  visited  the  forsaken,  and  he  compared  and 
collated  the  distresses  of  all  men  in  all  countries." 


17 


THE    CENTENNIAL    SITUATION   OF  WOMAN. 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  COMMENCEMENT   ANNIVERSARY  OF  MOUNT  HOLYOKE 
SEMINARY,  MASSACHUSETTS,  JUNE  22,  1876. 

If  I  were  to  adapt  my  theme  precisely  to  this  presence  and 
this  occasion,  I  should  perhaps  confine  myself  to  some  of  the 
methods  employed  in  educating  the  sex  to  which  this  insti- 
tution has  been  set  apart.  But  a  good  reason  for  thrusting 
this  duty  aside  may  be  found  in  my  own  unfitness  for  it,  aris- 
ing by  no  means  from  a  want  of  interest  in  the  subject, — 
for  that  interest,  even  if  it  had  been  dim  before,  your  counte- 
nances alone  would  brighten  to-day,  —  but  springing  rather 
from  my  habits  of  life  and  occupation,  which  have  not  held 
me  in  objective  intimacy  with  that  delicate  inquiry,  the  most 
important  of  our  time.  Neither  does  this  day  nor  this  school 
need  me  in  that  duty,  which  has  been  so  well  discharged  by 
your  speakers  of  former  years,  especially  and  most  completely 
by  the  President  of  this  institution,  to  whose  studies  and 
labors  your  sex  is  under  many  and  great  obligations,  and 
mine  is  under  more  and  greater  obligations.  Whilst,  there- 
fore, I  aim  to  keep  myself  in  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of 
your  anniversary,  you  will  permit  me  to  turn  away  from  the 
exact  reasoning  and  analysis,  supported  by  a  professional 
experience,  which  that  duty  would  require,  and  as  a  loyal 
citizen  of  America,  speaking  to  her  equally  loyal  daughters, 
to  invite  you  within  that  magical  centennial  circle  from 
which  in  this  present  year  all  our  institutions  and  experiences 
pass  out  in  review.     The  restrictions  of  the  hour  will  permit 


THE   CENTENNIAL   SITUATION   OF   WOMAN.  259 

me  to  touch  only  in  a  desultory  manner  upon  a  broad  consid- 
eration of  the  situation  of  woman  at  the  close  of  another 
centenary.  The  progress  of  civilization  and  the  advance  of 
the  whole  race  in  the  course  of  a  century  covers  for  the  most 
part  meliorations  in  which  both  sexes  share  alike,  nor  in  a 
just  sense  can  there  be  any  benefit  for  the  one  which  is  not 
also  a  benefit  for  the  other ;  and  yet  in  certain  fields  of  im- 
provement women  have  been  so  distinctively  the  beneficiaries 
of  the  last  hundred  years,  that  their  condition  in  this  partic- 
ular stands  apart  from  the  general  advancement  of  mankind, 
and  challenges  our  special  attention. 

The  position  of  the  sex  in  the  view  of  social  science,  as 
factors  in  our  systems  of  political  economy  and  industry,  takes 
precedence  in  every  discussion  of  the  situation.  The  merely 
sentimental  relations  of  what  is  called  woman's  mission,  the 
treatment  of  her  as  a  poetical  being  whose  primary  ofiice  is 
to  attract  and  charm,  are  essentially  modified  in  this  later 
age  by  the  lessons  of  a  practical  and  working  world.  We  are 
met  in  the  outset  by  the  conspicuous  fact,  that  at  the  present 
time  in  Great  Britain  and  in  our  own  country,  which  in  this 
respect  I  adopt  as  the  best  exponents  of  modern  civilization, 
a  very  large  proportion  of  women,  under  the  liberal  methods 
of  our  industry,  are  earning  their  living ;  and  although  this 
may  seem  a  topic  of  ungentle  features  to  be  presented  before 
young  ladies  mounting  on  the  wings  of  exhilaration  to  more 
airy  spheres,  it  nevertheless  represents  the  most  important 
advancement  which  their  sex  has  made  in  the  events  of 
the  century.  The  significant  part  of  it  is,  tliat  they  have 
made  this  advance  for  themselves,  and  that  men  have  not 
made  it  for  them.  In  the  earlier  ages  their  position  was  the 
natural  result  of  their  inferiority  in  physical  strength  ;  and 
accordingly  handmaids  rather  than  helpmates,  slaves  rather 
than  companions,  are  not  only  historical  characters  of  savage 
life,  but  are  actual  and  existing  characters  in  the  lowest  and 
least  educated  portions  of  civilized  life.  I  am  aware  that  in 
our  traditions  and  our  literature  it  has  been  the  accepted 


2G0  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

phrase,  that  woman  is  maintained  by  father  or  husband  or 
brother.  This  theory  is  a  type  of  real  existence  in  excep- 
tional circles  at  all  times,  and  has  much  to  recommend  it. 
Certainly  it  is  attractive  to  a  man  of  cultivated  tastes,  that  he 
may  turn  aside  from  the  dusty  avenues  of  his  own  daily 
offices,  and  refresh  liiniself  by  the  very  presence  of  a  refined 
and  spiritual  being,  whom  he  treats  sometimes  as  a  saint  and 
sometimes  as  a  spoiled  child ;  nor  is  this  practice  apt  to  be 
rejected  by  the  saint  or  the  child.  But  in  point  of  fact, 
speaking  of  the  sex  as  a  whole,  this  has  never  been  more 
than  a  partial  truth,  and  wherever  it  has  been  true  at  all,  it 
has  not  been  generally  to  their  advantage.  In  periods  when 
there  were  only  the  gentlewoman  and  the  low-born  woman, 
the  one  was  indeed  maintained  by  the  other  ;  but  the  one  also 
belonged  to  the  other,  or  to  the  master  of  both  ;  and  self- 
dependence,  whether  ideal  or  actual,  was  as  unknown  as  the 
electric  telegraph.  In  the  progress  of  time  the  uprising  of  a 
middle  class,  and  the  introduction  of  shop-keeping  and  tex- 
tile manufactures,  stimulated  the  dead  level  of  female  life  ; 
and  in  the  subsequent  growth  of  this  middle  class,  which  in 
every  nation  has  come  to  be  the  social  bulwark,  in  the  varied 
division  of  industries,  in  the  widening  opportunities  to  assert 
and  maintain  their  individuality,  women  have  escaped  the 
pernicious  condition  which  formerly  darkened  the  best  por- 
tions of  Europe,  under  which,  for  want  of  occupation  for 
independent  maintenance,  the  daughters  were  shut  in  to  the 
alternative  of  an  enforced  marriage  or  an  enforced  convent, 
—  and  whatever  else  woman  was  made  for,  I  do  not  believe 
she  was  made  for  a  marriage  or  a  nunnery  against  her  will. 

Now  in  this  extent  of  her  emancipation,  —  if  I  employ 
the  right  phraseology, —  the  last  hundred  years  have  wit- 
nessed a  constantly  increasing  exaltation  in  her  situation  as 
a  component  of  our  civil  economy,  which  surpasses  the  at- 
tainment of  five  or  ten  preceding  centuries.  Her  part  in 
the  business  of  life,  diffusing  its  influence  over  all  common 
and  all  cultivated  ranks,  and  changing  the  entire  form  of 


THE   CENTENNIAL   SITUATION    OF   WOMAN.  261 

society,  is  one  of  the  amazing  facts  of  our  time.  Twenty- 
years  ago,  —  I  have  not  seen  the  later  returns,  —  of  six  mil- 
lions of  women  above  twenty  years  of  age  in  England  and 
Scotland,  it  was  found  that  three  millions,  or  one  half  of 
the  whole  number,  were  special  in  the  industries  and  were 
independent  supporters ;  and  some  writers  expressed  the 
opinion  tliat  there  were  not  fifty  thousand  in  England  who 
were  not  in  some  manner  industrial  and  self-sustaining.  I 
resrret  that  from  the  returns  of  our  own  census  I  cannot 
derive  a  clear  and  satisfactory  statement ;  but  it  is  obvious 
to  all  of  us  that  the  result  w^ould  not  be  unlike  the  English 
conclusion.  No  doubt  the  industries  of  female  life  in  Massa- 
chusetts, leaving  out  the  department  of  agriculture,  bear  a 
close  resemblance  to  those  of  England,  and  the  lesson  derived 
from  them  is  a  characteristic  of  this  generation.  Under  our 
changed  and  more  liberal  political  economy,  the  need  and 
supply  of  female  industry  has  proved  to  be  one  of  the  most 
active  agencies  of  social  improvement,  and  has  advanced  the 
sex  to  independence  and  equality.  This  has  not  come  from 
their  own  assertion  or  ambition,  but  it  has  been  the  growth 
of  their  necessities  and  their  virtues.  It  has  grown  up  out 
of  the  commercial  spirit  of  the  age,  which  has  been  their 
educator  and  benefactor.  While  man,  heretofore  arbiter  of 
the  social  law,  of  his  own  volition  would  have  preserved 
woman  in  the  fancied  unworldliness  with  which  his  reading 
and  imagination  associated  her,  the  genius  of  modern  commerce 
has  led  her  out  into  its  fair  and  open  field,  where  the  mag- 
nets of  a  hundred  occupations  attract  her,  and  in  following 
them  neither  is  the  bloom  of  her  character  sullied,  nor  her 
place  in  the  household  abandoned,  nor  her  religion  profaned. 
Occupation,  widened  in  its  variety  and  raised  in  its  quality, 
presents  her  everywhere  on  high  ground  under  the  divine 
and  human  economy,  and  presents  her  nowhere  lowered  in 
the  scale  of  immortal  being.  Emerged  from  seclusion  and 
dependence  to  the  light  of  active  life,  she  yet  holds  in  her 
own  hand  the  veil  of  her  own  protection.     Her  steps  are 


2G2  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER    H.    BULLOCK. 

out  over  tlie  State.  She  is  mistress  of  the  advancing  corps 
of  educators;  she  ranks  among  the  enlightened  authors  of 
poetic  and  didactic  creations ;  she  assists  with  clean  hands 
the  power  of  the  press,  the  modern  regulator;  she  is  the 
indispensable  adjunct  and  sometimes  the  principal  in  at 
least  one  of  the  learned  professions ;  she  draws  her  passion- 
ate intuitions  in  imperishable  colors  over  the  field  of  art; 
she  transfers  finest  perceptions  over  the  finger  to  handiwork 
of  utility  and  beauty;  she  raises  manufactures  by  with- 
drawing them  from  the  shop  to  the  house ;  she  takes  pos- 
session of  the  doors  of  trade  and  establishes  what  is  orderly 
and  becoming  for  the  rule  of  the  place;  she  transmutes 
her  own  spirit  and  taste  by  daily  labor  into  the  national 
character;  she  alike  creates  and  adorns  whatever  of  hospi- 
tality we  enjoy,  —  she  makes  the  law  of  beauty  the  law  of  the 
table,  —  she  makes  home  a  refuge,  a  school,  and  an  altar.  It  is 
an  era  of  woman  brought  to  independence  by  the  unwritten, 
irreversible  laws  of  political  economy,  —  of  her  advancement 
under  the  influences  of  a  commercial  age.  The  last  fifty 
years  have  seen  old  barriers  broken  down,  which  can  never 
be  restored,  new  avenues  opened,  which  can  never  be  closed, 
over  which  her  advancing  step  has  not  been  so  much  the 
movement  of  her  design  as  it  has  been  the  fulfilment  of  her 
destiny.  This  hand  of  social  reform  has  been  gentle  but 
resistless. 

This  great  change  in  the  social  condition  has  not  been 
effected  without  corresponding  change  in  the  civil  rights  of 
women.  In  Great  Britain  much  has  been  gained  by  equi- 
table legislation  in  half  a  century,  and  much  remains  yet  to 
be  accomplished  before  a  just  legal  relation  will  be  estab- 
lished between  the  sexes.  In  our  own  Commonwealth  the 
progress  in  this  province  of  legal  reform  has  been  such  as 
to  leave  little  remaining  to  be  desired.  I  dare  say  some  of 
the  younger  States  may  be  in  the  lead  of  us  in  tliis  respect ; 
but  without  knowing  precisely  how  that  may  be,  I  am  war- 
ranted in  selecting  Massachusetts  as  presenting  a  model  of 


THE    CENTENNIAL   SITUATION   OF   WOMAN.  26 


o 


the  legal  status  of  the  rights  of  women,  and  as  a  represen- 
tative of  the  general  tendency  of  American  legislation.  The 
condition  of  the  rights  of  married  women  under  the  law  has 
been  a  fruitful  subject  of  discussion  for  a  long  period ;  but 
at  last,  in  our  own  State  at  least,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  sceptre  of  the  master,  whetlier  the  sceptre  and  the  mas- 
ter be  real  or  imaginary,  has  substantially  departed.  For  a 
general  statement,  a  hundred  years  ago  the  common  law  of 
England  was  the  prevailing  rule  here,  and  in  that  law  there 
was  a  degree  of  unjust  inequality  which  cannot  and  ought 
not  to  be  defended.  It  bore  some  flavor  of  the  early  time, 
when  the  physical  weakness  of  woman  appears  to  have  been 
the  measure  of  her  rights;  it  tasted  more  distinctively  of 
the  feudal  ages,  when  chivalry  invested  her  with  a  sort  of  ideal 
dignity,  but  continued  to  handle  her  with  gloves  of  mail ; 
it  carried  a  part  of  the  spirit  of  Teutonic  equality  and  more 
of  Eoman  equity,  to  which  some  of  her  present  immunities, 
including  that  of  dower,  may  be  traced  back  for  their  origin. 
But  as  a  rule,  upon  her  marriage,  it  swept  into  the  hands  of 
her  husband  the  main  body  of  her  personal  property  and 
personal  rights.  I  allow  that  he  in  turn  incurred  some  seri- 
ous incumbrances  and  liabilities,  but  they  by  no  means  cor- 
responded in  importance  to  those  which  she  surrendered. 
Without  doubt  the  theory  of  his  possession  was  held  to  fit 
the  theory  of  her  protection.  But  after  all  that  can  be  said 
in  explanation  or  extenuation,  for  the  greater  portion  of  her 
civil  riohts,  a  centurv  since,  a  woman  married  was  in  a  state 
of  civil  subjection  which,  according  to  the  analogies  of  other 
improvements,  ought  to  have  been  removed  a  century  before 
that  time.  But  in  the  spirit  of  freedom  of  modern  commerce, 
and  in  the  power  of  education,  this  injustice  from  root  to 
branch  has  mostly  been  swept  away.  By  successive  stages 
of  legislation,  commencing  almost  immediately  after  the 
adoption  of  the  State  constitution  in  1780,  followed  up  from 
interval  to  interval,  and  culminating  in  the  sweeping  law 
of  1874,  the  whole  force  of  these  inequalities  has  yielded 


264  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

before  tlie  paramount  equities  of  the  situation ;  and  to-day 
tlie  personality,  the  independence,  of  woman,  in  civil  rights 
under  the  law,  stands  out  the  crowning  achievement  of  tliis 
Commonwealth.  If  the  making  of  the  laws  had  been  in  her 
own  hands,  I  do  not  believe  that  tliey  could  be  more  be- 
neficent. 

Nor  has  her  relation  to  marriage  been  less  generously 
touched  by  the  hand  of  time.  According  to  the  old  usages 
of  England,  of  which  the  sanction  and  obligation  is  not  yet 
gone  by,  the  ecclesiastical  laws  and  the  ecclesiastical  courts 
were  infected  by  the  spirit  of  the  Papal  Church,  and  that 
spirit  always  fell  upon  women  in  matrimony  with  the  force 
of  a  vermilion  edict.  I  know  it  may  be  said  that  in  dealing 
with  the  two  persons  in  this  relation  of  life,  the  same  rule 
reached  to  both  parties  within  the  bond,  and  yet,  such  is 
man  and  such  is  woman,  in  their  different  spheres  of  lib- 
erty and  action,  that  contumely,  tyranny,  or  wrong  in  that 
sacred  relation  found  five  sufferers  on  the  weaker  side,  where 
it  found  one  on  the  stronger  side.  The  questions  which  arise 
in  marital  alienation  involve  not  solely  the  right  of  woman 
to  her  property  and  her  children,  —  though  that  is  grave 
enough  for  most  broad  and  solemn  justice,  —  but  they  in- 
volve her  right  to  herself,  to  her  self-respect,  to  a  good  place 
in  the  social  scale,  to  her  "  maiden  meditation,"  to  the  free- 
dom of  her  heart,  and  the  holiness  of  her  love.  It  may  be 
granted  that  in  the  spirit  of  the  espousal  she  is  bound  by  a 
sacramental  tie;  but  it  is  not  an  eternal  compact  under 
wron<T.  In  our  own  recent  time  Prussia,  Austria,  and  France 
have  been  struggling  for  the  recognition  of  marriage  as  a 
civil  contract,  and  the  German  mind  is  winning  the  day  from 
Eome  to  justice.  In  no  American  state,  so  far  as  I  know,  has 
marriage  ever  been  treated  in  the  European  sense  as  a  sacra- 
ment, nor  is  there  any  possibility  that  it  ever  will  be  so 
treated ;  but  in  some  of  the  older  States  of  this  Union,  at  the 
time  referred  to,  the  right  to  a  release  from  an  unnatural  or 
perverted  alliance  was  treated  with  a  severity  which,  as  with 


THE   CEXTENNLVL   SITUATION    OF   WOMAN.  265 

a  flaming  sword,  would  fain  drive  the  ill-starred  pair  back  to 
an  impossible  paradise.  Here  again  the  silent  forces  of  polit- 
ical economy  have  been  the  pioneers  of  the  legal  reform.  So 
many  and  so  grave  were  the  civil  incongruities  of  enforced 
union,  where  its  spirit  had  been  extinguished  by  neglect  or 
abuse,  so  frequent  and  serious  the  conflict  in  the  relative 
positions  of  both  persons  in  cases  of  separation  not  recog- 
nized by  law,  so  impossible  under  the  ancient  laws  equitably 
to  adjust  irreconcilable  questions  as  to  children  and  property, 
that  more  liberal  and  liumane  statutes  were  called  in  to  cut 
the  knot  and  to  furnish  relief  and  remedy.  I  believe  that 
we  are  now  living  under  a  more  just  and  suitable  construc- 
tion of  marital  relations,  than  any  century  has  before  enjoyed. 
The  reform  has  been  broad  in  the  interest  of  women.  In  the 
diverse  treatment  of  the  subject  under  the  jurisdiction  of  so 
many  States  no  doubt  it  is  difficult  to  close  the  door  against 
all  immoral  effects ;  but,  taking  the  State  in  which  we  reside 
for  our  field  of  observation,  I  am  convinced  that  the  welfare 
of  women  in  marriage  has  been  promoted,  in  the  last  forty 
years,  more  nearly  to  a  perfect  condition  than  could  have 
been  conceived  under  the  ancient  systems  of  the  world. 
Their  immunity  of  person  and  property,  their  right  to  release 
from  oppression  practised  under  the  certificate  of  a  wedding, 
their  opportunities  of  return  to  their  own  industry,  their  own 
affections,  and  their  own  religion,  are  advanced  to  a  degree 
which  suits  their  moral  and  social  necessities ;  which  ac- 
cords with  a  civilization  built  up  on  the  overthrow  of  eccle- 
siastical dogmatism  and  superstition,  too  long  received  under 
the  name  of  conservatism. 

But  tlie  chief  motive  cause  in  the  elevation  of  the  sex 
during  the  last  part  of  the  century  has  been  the  quickening 
power  of  education.  If  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth 
century  sent  forth  any  triumphant  lesson  to  pervade  the 
world,  it  was  the  opinion  that  the  right  of  private  judgment 
must  be  accompanied  by  the  education  of  those  who  are  to 
employ  it.     But  though  the  sentiments  of  Luther  tended  in 


2GG  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   U.   BULLOCK. 

that  direction,  so  unfamiliar  was  that  age  with  the  conception 
of  woman  rising  above  her  recognized  sphere,  that  it  re- 
mained for  later  time  to  bring  home  to  her  the  beneficence  of 
the  vital  principle  upon  which  alone  complete  Protestantism 
can  stand.  Conventual  houses  bore  some  fruit  of  education, 
but  it  was  intended  and  was  kept  limited  in  its  uses  ;  the  birds 
might  practise  their  voices  within,  but  they  might  not  send 
cut  their  heavenly  airs  over  the  M-aiting  communities.  And 
not  until  the  work  of  the  Protestant  reformers  had  been  sup- 
plemented by  political  freedom,  not  until  free  expression  of 
thought  had  been  circulated  by  the  wings  of  commerce,  was 
the  way  prepared  for  this  later  blessing.  And  it  was  a  long 
time  in  coming.  Chivalry  had  cast  about  a  chosen  few  of  its 
heroines  an  artificial  glare,  but  it  was  the  flame  of  gallantry 
and  not  the  light  of  knowledge.  The  superstitions  of  the 
church  for  hundreds  of  years  dropped  around  the  mass  of 
the  sex  a  drapery  of  exclusion  and  ignorance  which  was  im- 
penetrable to  light.  The  church  has  been  to  them,  in  too 
many  instances,  a  mysterious  and  uncertain  guardian.  We 
are  accustomed  to  say  that  their  social  exaltation  has  come 
out  of  Christianity,  and  so  I  believe,  —  but  not  altogether 
out  of  its  professional  ministers  and  teachers.  Even  in  our 
time  the  Church  has  been  a  doubtful  guide  for  conducting 
them  to  the  culture  which  would  alike  animate  their  in- 
dustries and  irradiate  their  homes.  We  have  been  told  that 
the  late  unfortunate  Empress  of  the  French,  under  inspi- 
ration of  the  southern  custodian  of  the  conscience  of  France, 
was  industrious  over  the  spiritual  condition  of  her  charge, 
including  the  imperial  consort ;  but  I  have  never  heard 
that  she  received  from  the  same  consecrated  source  any  in- 
structions to  aid  in  raising  up  six  or  eight  millions  of  be- 
nighted peasant-women  out  of  gross  ignorance  by  the  magical 
touches  of  education.  My  clerical  friends  around  me  will 
pardon  me  for  the  suggestion,  that  even  in  our  generation 
Protestant  clergymen,  in  treating  this  delicate  subject,  may 
have  too  often  overlooked  the  ways  of  worldly  wisdom.     If 


•      THE   CENTENNIAL   SITUATION    OF   WOMAN.  267 

one  half  of  the  force  of  learning  and  intellect,  which  in 
assemblies  and  synods,  in  councils  and  pulpits,  has  been 
expended  upon  the  question  whether  a  man  with  three  or 
four  motherless  children  may  or  may  not  marry  the  sister  of 
the  deceased  wife,  had  been  devoted  to  the  living,  impending 
question  of  educating  all  the  girls  in  the  village  with  sweet 
graces  for  wives  and  tender  fitness  for  mothers,  perhaps 
Christianity  would  not  have  lost  any  credit  as  the  renovator, 
nor  its  preachers  any  honor  as  benefactors.  The  result  of  a 
different  procedure  has  been,  what  might  have  been  expected, 
that  the  widowers  in  apparently  increasing  numbers  have 
continued  to  marry  the  sisters,  and  maidens  in  numbers  alto- 
gether too  large  have  neglected  to  educate  themselves  for 
married  life.  But  Protestant  Christianity,  selecting  other 
agencies  of  influence,  has  brought  its  enginery  to  bear  upon 
the  work  of  female  education.  The  great  spiritual  hero  of 
the  Keformation  sounded  the  key-note  for  the  uprising  of  the 
sex,  and  commercial  communities,  stimulated  by  the  spirit  of 
true  religion  and  the  conscious  power  of  education,  have 
helped  the  movement  forward  never  to  go  back. 

More  than  a  century  ago,  there  was,  among  a  few  of  the 
supreme  women  of  Europe,  a  culture  of  which  the  splendor 
has  descended  to  us  in  tradition  and  letters.  It  came  from 
a  conventual  and  aristocratical  education,  which  in  some  re- 
spects has  rarely  been  surpassed.  For  elegance  and  refine- 
ment of  the  written  and  spoken  word,  for  wit  enforced  by 
animal  spirits,  for  talent  enlivened  by  ardor  of  imagination 
and  sustained  by  constitutional  gayety  even  in  the  shadow  of 
old  aue,  a  limited  number  of  the  women  of  France,  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  have  left  a  celebrity 
which  still  abides  in  literature  and  society.  For  truthful 
expression  and  natural  manners  the  letters  of  Madame  de 
Sevigne  have  long  been  a  social  classic  in  Europe,  and  have 
been  deemed  so  worthy  of  study  in  our  country  that  Mr. 
Everett  warmly  commended  them  to  the  young  ladies  of 
Massachusetts.     Several  others  attained  to  similar  fame  in 


2C8  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER    II.    BULLOCK. 

conversation  and  letter- writing,  a  province  in  which  women 
are  natural  authors.  The  letters  of  IMesdames  du  Deffand 
and  de  Choiseul  and  Mademoiselle  de  I'Espinasse,  not  to 
extend  the  list,  have  made  their  sex  illustrious  in  the  annals 
of  frenteel  education.  In  and  around  the  Endish  court  life 
in  the  last  age  were  memorable  literary  exemplars.  But  this 
development  was  confined  to  a  small  class,  and  was  more 
brilliant  than  worthy  of  imitation.  Llany  of  the  characters 
were  such  types  of  their  sex  as  Horace  Walpole  was  a  type 
of  ours.  They  trifled  with  the  solemn  realities  of  duty,  and 
employed  intellect  to  flatter  the  weakness  and  the  vices  of 
society.  It  was  a  culture  of  graces  and  not  of  the  reason  and 
the  heart,  —  which  "  turned  mortal  life  into  a  fine  dream,  and 
presented  death  as  but  a  drooping  of  the  garlands  of  a  feast 
from  which  the  guests  have  departed."  It  was  an  era  of 
theatric  pageant  of  life,  in  which  the  modest  millions  of  the 
ranks  of  the  sex  could  have  no  part  to  act.  Anything  like 
the  need  of  an  open  field  for  the  education  of  the  greater 
number  was  not  recognized  in  the  opinion  of  that  day,  and 
that  recognition  was  slow  in  appearing. 

The  present  American  system  of  female  education  is  the 
result  of  a  long  conflict  with  unenlightened  public  sentiment, 
a  triumph  over  prejudices  which  have  had  no  analogy  in  the 
other  ways  of  our  life.  The  river  which  sweeps  with  graceful 
curvature  under  the  ceaseless  challenge  of  yonder  sentinel  of 
the  valley,  bringing  to  your  doors  the  lessons  of  an  undying 
master,  the  incitations  of  a  perpetual  poem,  is  the  witness 
and  interpreter  of  my  topic.  Upon  either  of  its  shores  all 
other  advancements  were  made  full  six  scores  of  years  before 
this  one.  Every  successive  invention  or  discovery  of  agri- 
culture was  brought  to  use  in  the  cultivation  of  this  allu- 
vion ;  every  stage  of  applied  science  was  quickly  seized  and 
appropriated  by  the  practical  and  mechanical  arts  ;  inquisi- 
tive and  progressive  theology  under  Edwards  and  his  suc- 
cessors sounded  through  generations  up  and  down  the 
Connecticut ;  civil  freedom  and  political  science  were  never 


THE  CENTENNIAL   SITUATION   OF   WOMAN.  269 

without  a  patron  and  teacher  in  Havvley  and  Strong,  in  Mills 
and  Bates,  in  Allen  and  Ashmun  ;  genius  of  world-wide  fame 
gathered  boys  at  its  feet  for  instruction  on  the  heights  of 
Northampton ;  all  the  churches  and  all  the  ministers  within 
a  forty-mile  circle  put  themselves  for  ten  years  under  self- 
denying  ordinances,  until  a  college  for  young  men  should 
be  set  in  the  swelling  landscape  of  Amherst ;  while,  in  all 
that  long  period,  the  idea  of  a  seminary  for  the  education  of 
young  women  existed,  I  suppose,  among  the  eternal  decrees, 
—  certainly  fifty  years  ago  it  existed  nowhere  else.  In 
England  the  condition  was  not  less  deplorable.  In  the  com- 
paratively recent  lifetime  of  Sydney  Smith  female  education 
was  so  utterly  disregarded  that  in  one  of  the  most  vigorous 
papers  of  that  extraordinary  man  he  sought  to  enlist  for  the 
subject  the  interest  of  his  countrymen  by  a  course  of  argu- 
ments which  we  have  now  so  far  outgrown  that  if  I  were  to 
employ  them  here  to-day  you  would  deem  them  scarcely 
above  platitudes  and  truisms.  The  difficulty  in  the  way  was 
an  indurated  and  concealed  popular  belief  of  the  inutility 
and  inexpediency  of  encouraging  culture  in  the  sex,  —  a  be- 
lief so  rooted  in  the  prejudices  of  men  that  in  some  natures 
it  still  exists  lurking  as  a  subtle  poison,  unacknowledged 
because  publicity  in  our  day  would  be  shame.  It  is  no 
longer  respectable  to  be  indifferent  to  this  subject ;  and 
whenever  in  any  work  of  reform  that  stage  is  reached,  the 
victory  is  already  won.  The  first  dawn  of  this  moral  revo- 
lution was  in  Llassachusetts,  and  the  civilized  world  concedes 
the  fact  by  adopting  the  example.  When  free  education  for 
both  sexes,  as  a  municipal  duty  to  be  enforced  by  law,  be- 
came here  the  public  interpretation  of  state  obligation,  the 
finger  of  transfiguration  touched  the  destiny  of  woman,  nor 
can  any  reaction  ever  set  it  back.  Limited  for  generations 
by  the  public  poverty,  it  has  for  generations  been  increasing 
with  the  public  wealth  and  the  relaxation  of  ancient  preju- 
dice, until  a  respectable  standard  of  culture  is  now  required 
by  law  in  equal  degree  for  the  one  sex  and  the  other.     The 


270  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    LtULLOCK. 

cloud  of  prejudice  has  lifted  from  public  opinion,  the  vision 
of  duty  has  expanded,  the  scope  of  legislation  has  widened, 
and  to-day  all  over  the  United  States  the  acknowledged 
right  of  equality  in  the  mental  relations  of  the  sexes  is  a 
part  of  the  atmosphere  we  breathe. 

In  adopting  the  rule  of  aiding  from  the  treasury  of  the 
State  the  higher  seminaries  of  female  education,  some  of  the 
newer  States  have  larger  claims  to  gratitude  than  our  own 
Commonwealth.  We  may  rejoice  that  in  the  "West,  along 
those  parallels  of  latitude  which  the  bracing  air  of  freedom 
and  intelligence  pervades,  where  the  influences  that  are  to 
control  the  future  of  this  country  are  rapidly  taking  grace 
and  culture,  government  patronage  opens  its  gates  to  the 
largest  development  of  the  daughters.  In  some  of  those  im- 
perial Commonwealths  the  doors  of  State  universities  are 
thrown  wide  open  to  both  sexes.  I  equally  regret  that 
the  past  error  of  Massachusetts,  in  this  respect,  cannot  now 
be  retrieved.  While  her  Legislature,  at  intervals  through 
several  generations,  made  public  grants  to  the  colleges  for 
boys,  it  left  the  daughters  alone  to  the  thinner  diet  of  the 
common  schools.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  ever  again  it 
will  be  a  part  of  our  public  policy  to  make  grants  from  the 
treasury  to  the  higher  seminaries  of  either  sex,  and  probably 
henceforth  they  must  rely  upon  private  liberality ;  nor  am 
I  by  any  means  confident  that  in  the  enlarged  wealth  of  the 
time  this  will  not  be  the  just  policy.  It  is  chiefly  observa- 
ble that  this  kind  of  legislation  should  stop  precisely  at  the 
time  when  the  girls'  colleges  are  emerging  in  divinest  array 
from  an  age  of  neglect.  And  since  this  is  likely  to  be  our 
future  public  policy,  I  take  special  pleasure  in  saying  that 
the  last  act  of  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  granting 
money  from  the  treasury  to  a  collegiate  institution,  was  an 
act  alike  of  indemnity  and  expiation.  On  a  morning  in  the 
winter  of  1867,  when  it  happened  to  me  to  be  in  the  executive 
office,  I  received  at  the  State  House  the  visit  of  two  ladies,  the 
one  already  then  a  munificent  patroness  of  this  institution,  and 


THE   CENTENNIAL   SITUATION   OF  WOMAN.  271 

the  other  actively  connected  with  its  administration,  who 
solicited  my  co-operation  in  an  endeavor  to  obtain  an  act  of 
legislative  assistance  for  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary.  I  was 
deeply  impressed  by  their  plea  that  the  Commonwealth  had 
never  given  a  dollar  to  any  female  seminary.  Eeferring 
them  to  a  few  gentlemen  in  both  houses  who  might  greatly 
assist  them,  it  only  remained  for  me  to  assure  them,  quite 
in  disregard  of  the  proprieties  of  my  office,  that  if  they 
would  procure  the  passage  of  the  bill  through  the  Legislature, 
it  should  be  signed  as  quickly  as  I  could  read  it.  I  can 
sincerely  say,  with  pride  for  myself  but  with  greater  pride 
for  Massachusetts,  that  probably  no  magistrate  ever  wrote 
his  name  with  more  alacrity  than  I  felt  in  affixing  mine  to 
an  act  which,  by  the  payment  of  forty  thousand  dollars  out 
of  the  treasury  to  this  institution,  cast  over  our  coat  of  arms 
a  fresh  light,  the  light  of  justice. 

Nothing  in  the  methods  of  social  progress  is  more  pro- 
pitious than  the  surrender  of  the  profession  of  teaching  to 
women.  For  some  years  after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 
tion they  were  ineligible  to  this  office,  and  if  admitted  to 
perform  its  duties  in  the  public  schools,  I  believe,  they  could 
not  by  process  of  law  collect  their  salary.  Not  only  has 
this  wrong  been  removed,  but  in  our  day  an  entire  revolu- 
tion has  overtaken  this  occupation.  In  part  for  reasons  of 
political  economy,  in  part  because  of  a  more  just  estimate 
of  their  sex  as  natural  educators,  women  now  constitute 
nine  tenths  of  the  whole  corps  of  public  instructors  in  the 
State ;  they  fill  the  same  office  in  the  normal  schools,  in  all 
the  higli  schools,  in  all  the  higher  seminaries ;  in  short,  they 
are  supreme  everywhere  in  our  education,  save  in  the  tech- 
nical and  classical  schools  and  the  colleges.  No  change  so 
broad  and  radical  as  this  has  been  witnessed  in  any  other 
field  of  social  science  in  modern  time.  For  the  future,  our 
citizenship,  our  magistracy,  our  history,  is  under  their  hands. 
If  we  contemplate  this  vast  corps  on  their  several  planes  of 
power,  whether  in  domestic  training  or  in  public  instruction, 


272  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

directing  the  early  impressible  years  as  they  can  be  directed 
only  in  the  sacred  retirement  of  home,  or  by  a  genius  tit  for 
the  occupation  conducting  the  incitements  of  the  classroom,  we 
must  acknowledge  that  the  women  of  this  generation  are 
performing  their  part  for  the  preservation  of  this  Govern- 
ment. Some  persons  are  doubtless  present,  who  in  their 
walks  in  Home  have  gazed  with  pride  upon  the  genius  of  a 
few  of  their  countrywomen,  projected  in  the  image  of  marble; 
but  I  point  you  to  thousands  of  your  countrywomen,  in  all 
portions  of  this  land,  who  are  moulding  human  nature  in 
the  spiritual  image,  which  shall  survive  when  marble  shall 
have  crumbled.  And  since  this  beneficent  work  has  fallen 
into  their  hands,  it  is  well  for  our  country  that  their  superi- 
ority as  educators  is  especially  in  the  domain  of  the  moral 
sentiment,  for  never  before  has  our  political  condition  stood 
in  greater  need  of  those  influences.  Whenever  a  blight 
spreads  over  the  political  morals  of  a  people,  the  remedy  has 
to  come  from  the  next  generation.  It  is  possible  only  to  a 
limited  extent  to  modify  the  evil  in  men  hackneyed  in  the 
abuses  of  public  trust ;  the  hope  of  purification  is  chiefly  to 
be  found  in  a  new  blood.  It  is  the  memory  of  ennobling 
instructions  which  youth  carries  into  manhood,  that  supplies 
the  promise  of  our  free  institutions.  The  high  qualities  of 
Lord  Denman,  the  soul  of  honor  in  every  relation  he  touched, 
were  traced  to  the  governess  of  his  boyhood ;  and  when  ad- 
vanced in  his  career  as  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England,  he 
still  related  with  the  simplicity  of  a  child  his  night  dreams 
of  Mrs.  Barbauld.  I  look  abroad  over  the  fields  traversed 
by  the  graduates  of  this  institution,  now  rapidly  aproaching 
two  tliousand,  and  I  behold  them  at  their  work  on  the  na- 
tional character ;  I  see  them  defiling  into  .all  the  States 
of  the  Union,  infusing  the  middle  ranks  of  our  life  with 
gentleness  and  strength  of  culture,  —  instructors,  with  Ltetitia 
Barbauld,  inculcating  the  sentiments  which  will  draw  around 
the  future  citizen  the  conscious  solemnities  of  responsibility, 
and  purify  his  discharge  of  private  or  public  trust,  —  in  the 


THE   CENTENNIAL   SITUATION   OF  WOMAN.  273 

family,  with  Miss  Sedgwick,  gracing  domestic  duties  by  the  re- 
lief of  studies,  —  with  Caroline  Herschel,  supplementing  the 
care  of  the  household  with  the  gaze  of  the  heavens,  —  in  the 
occasional  offices  of  compassion  and  benevolence  as  effect- 
ually fulfilling  the  mission  of  the  Lord,  as  Dorothea  Dix  or 
Elizabeth  Fry,  as  Mary  Pickard  or  Sarah  Pellatt,  —  in  the 
common  lot  of  existence,  by  their  elevation  of  the  WTitten 
and  spoken  word,  as  truly  promoting  the  dignity  of  their 
own  sex  and  commanding  the  respect  of  the  other,  as  if  they 
bore  the  name  of  Edgeworth  or  More,  of  Jameson  or  Aiken ; 
and  I  follow  this  influence  through  the  ever  lenfthenino- 
progression  of  time,  until  it  is  lost  to  sight  in  the  depth 
of  ages. 

Such  are  some  of  the  chief  exponents  of  the  benefits 
which  the  century  has  brought  to  the  sex.  There  is  a  more 
general  but  not  less  impressive^  feature  of  her  advance  in 
the  respect  of  this  age.  In  this  moral  and  social  eminence 
there  is  also  a  higher  esteem  and  homage  for  her  individu- 
ality, for  her  being,  simply  as  woman,  than  at  any  former 
period.  Never  was  there  a  time  before  when  she  was  so 
encompassed  by  spontaneous  honor  and  veneration.  More 
conspicuously  now  than  ever  before,  she  is  reverenced  for 
herself,  —  because  she  exists.  If  it  might  have  been  feared 
that  her  going  forth  into  the  ways  of  commerce  and  arts  and 
many  industries  would  dethrone  her  from  the  pedestal  on 
which  past  ages  had  placed  her,  experience  has  shown  that 
her  divinity  is  now  encircled  by  a  broader  homage  than  those 
ages  ever  knew.  It  is  true,  this  instinctive  deference  for 
her  has  always  existed,  lodging  itself  in  the  heart  of  every 
period,  varying  with  diversities  of  nations  or  customs  or 
manners,  adapting  itself  to  all  the  revolutions  of  thought 
which  have  shaken  religions  and  codes,  ever  standing  out 
as  a  thing  distinct  from  all  other  things,  —  deference  for 
woman.  It  is  equally  true  that  this  manifests  itself  in  our 
time  by  acknowledging  female  ascendency  in  higher  meth- 
ods and  on  higher  levels  than  existed  in  the  days  of  Northern 

18 


274  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

invasion,  or  gallantry  of  Provence,  or  self-assertion  in  revolu- 
tionary Paris.  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  the  Gothic  periods 
women  made  a  great  advance  as  the  recipients  of  an  exag- 
gerated yet  genuine  adoration,  but  the  modern  is  the  higher 
and  larger  style.  If  in  that  time  they  were  shielded  by 
gallantry  as  dependent  in  their  weakness,  they  are  now 
shielded  in  equality  of  rights  by  the  sword  of  the  law,  by 
the  hand  of  man,  by  the  opinion  of  society.  If  they  were 
then  revered  because  of  their  qualities  without  attainments, 
they  are  now  revered  because  of  their  qualities  unfolded  by 
education.  If  the  ancient  chivalry  threw  its  arms  around 
them  as  beings  not  desecrated  by  the  utilities,  the  chivalry  of 
our  day  hedges  them  with  the  legions  of  its  law  and  the 
angels  of  its  commerce.  If  the  Troubadours  adored  them  for 
the  goddesses  they  were  not.  Christian  men  respect  them  for 
the  women  they  are.  If  in  the  ancient  joust  knights  shiv- 
ered their  lances  for  beauties  whose  wits  were  invented  sev- 
eral centuries  afterwards  by  Walter  Scott,  modern  gentlemen 
would  die  in  earnest  for  the  immortal  beauty  of  womanhood. 
If  in  the  period  of  Middle-Age  romance  the  higher  few 
received  those  courtesies,  the  code  of  modern  society  raises 
and  guards  the  whole. 

Historically  woman  is  at  the  acme  of  her  power.  The  age 
is  in  full  accord  with  her ;  and  on  whatever  ground  she  steps, 
she  commands  the  sympathy  of  mankind.  Nor  to  chivalry, 
nor  to  law,  nor  to  commerce  is  her  place  in  all  hearts  to  be 
exclusively  ascribed.  The  inspiration  of  the  masters  of 
thought  has  spread  through  modern  literature,  and  from 
stage  to  stage  has  sounded  the  notes  of  her  progress.  The 
mysteries  of  her  being  have  met  their  interpretation  in  the 
profound  insight  and  pure  conceptions  of  Milton.  Incom- 
parably beyond  all  others,  Shakespeare  has  uncovered  lier 
capacities  both  for  goo<i  and  for  evil,  the  excesses  and  the  limi- 
tations of  her  nature,  the  side  of  her  vanity  and  the  side  of 
her  glory.  In  comparatively  recent  years  the  book-shelves 
have  been  stockin<f  with  commentaries  from  both  sexes  on 


THE   CENTENNIAL   SITUATION    OF   WOMAN.  275 

the  female  characters  of  the  great  dramatist,  until  Juliet  and 
Ophelia,  Desdemona  and  Cordelia,  Portia  and  Beatrice,  Lady 
Macbeth  and  Katharine  of  Arragon,  are  familiar  as  the  living. 
His  interpretation  of  her,  piercing  as  the  light  of  the  dia- 
mond, is  caught  up  and  radiated  from  every  sphere  of  active 
thought,  from  the  pulpit  and  the  bar,  from  novels  vt^hich  are 
histories  and  from  histories  which  are  novels,  from  schools, 
from  cottages,  from  the  shops,  and  his  myriad-mind  pleads 
everywhere  her  cause.  How  deeply  he  has  touched  the  foun- 
tains of  the  human  heart  in  all  classes,  and  how  closely  he  has 
brought  man  into  intelligent  sympathy  with  woman,  the 
stage  bears  daily  witness  whenever  applause  runs  from  seat 
to  seat  over  his  grand  words  in  her  behalf,  for  love  and 
mercy,  for  justice  and  retribution.  Addison  has  been  her 
amiable  satirist  and  kindly  instructor.  Burns  still  feels  the 
chords  of  the  race  with  her  pathos  and  plaintive  love.  I  for- 
bear to  extend  the  catalogue.  Whilst  Swift  and  Pope  and 
Johnson,  who  were  incapable  of  being  amiable  or  just  to 
woman,  retire  from  her  support,  Milton  and  Shakespeare,  Ad- 
dison and  Burns,  are  read  by  constantly  increasing  numbers ; 
the  nobility  and  naturalness,  the  dignity  and  tenderness,  of 
their  sentiments,  laid  at  the  shrine  of  her  affections  and  her 
wrongs,  have  passed  into  the  common  mind  of  this  age  and 
have  become  a  part  of  its  humane  judgment.  Over  all  these 
inspiring  influences,  which  have  aided  to  bring  mankind  to 
the  justice  of  her  relations,  the  lessons  of  the  Master  of  our 
holy  religion  preside  and  govern,  qualifying,  exalting,  com- 
bining them  into  a  harmonious  public  opinion. 

One  of  the  conclusions  from  the  discussions  of  the  century 
appears  to  be  the  settlement  of  the  question  of  the  intel- 
lectual equality  of  the  sexes.  If  you  ask  how  it  has  been 
settled,  —  by  tlie  conclusion  that  there  is  no  question  which 
ever  can  or  ought  to  be  settled  at  all.  If  the  disputations  of 
the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years  over  this  question  could  be 
collected,  the  curiosities  of  literature  would  be  vastly  swollen. 
After  bringing  the  lens  of  Scotch  metaphysics  to  bear  upon  it 


276  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER    II.    BULLOCK. 

Dusald  Stewart  decided  that  all  intellectual  differences  are 
the  consequence  of  difference  in  education,  and  Lord  Jeffrey, 
model  in  learning  and  fairness  of  judgment,  inclines  in  the 
same  direction.  Other  critics  equally  profound  have  as  posi- 
tively maintained  the  opposite  opinion.  A  female  writer  of 
marked  acumen  and  liberal  learning,  who  has  made  valuable 
contributions  to  our  literature,  Mrs.  Jameson,  expresses  the 
opinion  that  "the  intellect  of  woman  bears  the  same  relation 
to  that  of  man  as  her  physical  organization  .  it  is  inferior  in 
power,  and  different  in  kind.  In  men  the  intellectual  facul- 
ties exist  more  self-poised  and  self-directed,  more  independent 
of  the  rest  of  the  character,  than  we  find  them  in  women ; 
with  whom  talent,  however  predominant,  is  in  much  greater 
degree  modified  by  the  sympathies  and  by  moral  causes." 
The  sum  total  of  the  general  belief  of  the  most  enlightened 
of  both  sexes  appears  to  be,  that  there  is  a  difference  of  kind 
in  their  natural  endowments,  and  that  there  is  for  each  an 
appropriate  field  for  development  and  action,  I  think  we 
may  agree  this  morning,  that  woman  is  the  superior  in  nice 
perception  of  minute  circumstances,  in  the  force  and  prompt- 
itude of  her  sympathy,  in  the  courage  of  her  affections  and 
moral  sentiments,  in  all  the  qualities  depending  upon  excit- 
ability of  nerve,  in  her  capacity  for  noble  and  devoted 
attachment,  in  patience,  quickness,  and  tact,  and  in  a  talent 
which  is  not  defined  by  the  metaphysicians,  and  which  men 
sometimes  find  embarrassing  to  themselves,  the  gift  of  second 
sight.  I  shall  leave  for  you  to  determine,  whether  the  sterner 
sex  does  or  does  not  excel  in  the  power  of  close  and  logical 
reasoning,  in  the  capacity  for  investigating  questions  involv- 
ing complex  and  indeterminate  elements,  in  perseverance 
rather  than  patience,  in  concentrated  power  of  attention,  in 
sustained  reach  of  combination  and  generalization,  in  creative 
force,  in  breadth  oT  judgment  and  scope  of  imagination.  To 
what  extent  education  can  modify  the  diversities  which  exist, 
whatever  they  may  be,  it  is  unnecessary  to  inquire,  since  the 
approving  judgment  of  our  day  has  on  the  whole  accepted 


THE   CENTENNIAL   SITUATION    OF   WOMAN.  277 

the  fact  that  such  diversities  do  not  impair  the  relative  influ- 
ence of  either  sex,  that  neither  class  of  forces  is  higher  than 
the  other  in  the  scale  of  mind,  and  that  both  are  essential 
for  the  greatest  success  of  the  race.  In  the  warfare  of  life 
the  cavalry  and  the  artillery  must  co-operate  in  the  achieve- 
ment of  victory. 

It  is  an  interesting  feature  of  this  subject,  that  while  meta- 
physicians and  partisans  have  been  agitating  this  question  of 
equality  of  endowments,  each  sex  has  in  practice  uniformly 
recognized  the  superiority  of  the  other.  Women  always  imi- 
tate men  in  intellectual  display,  always  take  pride  in  being 
deemed  their  equals,  always  receive  from  their  hand  the 
wreath  of  honor  with  complacency ;  men  always  seelc  the 
critical  approval  of  women,  receive  their  satire  as  the  very 
edge  of  truth,  care  more  for  the  galleries  than  for  the  floor, 
and  never  feel  sure  of  success  if  their  penetrating  eye  with- 
holds its  acknowledgment.  The  finer  qualities  pay  tribute  to 
the  coarser ;  the  higher  qualities  predominate  over  the  greater. 
This  practice  does  not  much  proceed  from  mere  gallantry  or 
from  badinage ;  it  is  the  rule  of  conduct  of  sincere  and 
serious  life.  It  is  the  triumph  of  moral  power  over  the  intel- 
lectual. This  reciprocal  recognition  of  superiority,  each  sex 
as  to  the  other,  is  an  unerring  indication  that  in  ordering  the 
operations  of  the  social  system  divine  Providence  established 
over  it  this  mystic  law.  It  is  the  tie  which  binds  men  and 
women  in  the  solemn  unities  of  life.  It  is  the  happy  fiction, 
if  you  please,  it  is  the  moral  unreality,  imder  which  each  sex 
is  ever  courting  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  itself  from  the 
other,  —  and  "  goes  to  the  courtship  as  its  prayer,"  —  under 
which  each  sex  ever  concedes  it  to  the  other,  and  is  more 
blessed  in  giving  than  in  receiving.  Under  human  necessity 
the  laws  of  states  confine  certain  offices  of  duty  to  the 
stronger,  in  no  derogation  of  the  right  or  dignity  of  the 
weaker ;  and  in  turn,  by  those  subtile  and  beneficent  influ- 
ences which  nature  gave  them,  which  man  would  not  take 
away  if  he  could,  and  could  not  take  away  if  he  would,  the 


278  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

weaker  become  the  superior,  and  overshadow  alike  the  law- 
maker and  the  law.  Tliere  is  a  harmonious  inequality,  which 
is  better  than  the  most  perfect  equality.  Tlie  great  Christian 
Ijrrist  has  wrought  the  mysterious  incongruities  and  contra- 
dictions of  the  sexes  into  matchless  shape  of  reconciliation. 
After  assigning  to  the  lips  of  Adam  in  paradise  the  strongest 
expressions  of  his  own  superiority  in  mind  and  inward  fac- 
ulties, in  accord,  he  says,  with  the  prime  end  of  nature,  he 
allows  our  progenitor  to  break  forth  in  another  and  loftier 
strain :  — 

"  Yet  when  I  approach 
—  Her  loveliness,  so  absolute  she  seems, 

And  in  herself  complete,  so  well  to  know 
Her  own,  that  what  she  wills  to  do,  or  say, 
Seems  wisest,  virtuousest,  discreetest,  best. 
All  higher  knowledge  in  her  presence  falls 
Degraded.     Wisdom,  in  discourse  with  her. 
Loses,  discountenanced,  and  like  folly  shows. 
Authority  and  reason  on  her  wait. 
As  one  intended  first,  and  not  after  made 
Occasionally;  and  to  consummate  all. 
Greatness  of  mind,  and  nobleness,  their  seat 
Build  in  her  loveliest,  and  create  an  awe 
About  her,  as  a  guard  angelic  placed." 

I  think  the  experience  of  this  age  has  confirmed  the 
opinion  of  former  time  as  to  the  relation  of  woman  to  the 
conduct  of  public  affairs.  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  particu- 
lar portion  of  this  subject  which  is  involved  in  the  question 
of  her  exercise  of  the  right  of  suffrage.  It  is  my  conviction, 
on  a  review  of  the  past,  that  as  the  common  judgment  of 
both  men  and  women  was  before  adverse  to  such  participa- 
tion in  public  affairs,  the  experience  of  the  century  has  not 
changed  that  opinion.  In  my  apprehension  this  conclusion 
is  founded  in  good  reason  and  just  sentiment.  A  most  dis- 
criminating female  writer,  who  has  not  been  backward  in 
asserting  the  dignity  of  her  sex,  has  said  that  "  women,  how- 
ever well  read  in  history,  never  generalize  in  politics,  never 
reason  from  any  broad  and  general  principles,  or  from  past 


THE  CENTENNIAL   SITUATION    OF   WOMAN.  279 

events,  their  causes  and  their  consequences,  —  but  are  politi- 
cal through  their  affections,  prejudices,  hopes,  fears,  and 
personal  connections."  And  you  will  permit  me  to  inquire, 
who  ever  saw  a  woman  set  to  work  to  discuss  such  questions 
as  the  proper  duties  and  limitations  of  legislation,  the  com- 
plex mischief  of  certain  laws  and  policies,  the  causes  of 
national  wealth,  the  relations  of  foreign  trade  and  domestic 
industry,  the  field  of  agriculture  and  manufactures,  the  finance 
and  the  currency,  the  laws  of  population,  the  management  of 
poverty  and  mendicity,  the  theories  of  taxation,  the  conse- 
quences of  the  public  debt,  and  all  public  matters  upon 
which  the  welfare  of  a  state  depends.  It  is  not  a  sufficient 
answer  to  this  inquiry,  to  say  that  she  has  been  kept  out  of 
the  practice  of  politics,  because,  while  she  has  never  been 
prohibited  from  the  study  of  civil  economy,  she  has  never 
cast  the  light  of  reflective  wisdom  over  any  one  of  its  fields. 
Women  have  ranged  with  free  volition  over  the  whole  do- 
main of  speculative  thought,  and  the  fact  that  they  have 
either  avoided  the  severities  of  political  economy  or  have 
added  nothing  of  value  to  it,  is  their  own  voluntary  tribute 
to  the  wisdom  of  the  division  of  duties  under  which  society 
has  so  long  existed.  And  distribution  of  political  service 
indifferently  among  men  and  women  is  so  suggestive  of  con- 
fusion, awkwardness,  and  impossibility  of  progress  in  domestic 
life,  that  the  piercing  instinct  of  the  female  mind  very  gen- 
erally rejects  it. 

This  opinion  of  the  sex  has  become  more  firmly  estab- 
lished by  the  experiments  which  have  been  made  in  the 
opposite  direction  during  the  century.  In  the  higher  circles 
of  the  society  of  France,  at  a  time  not  now  remote,  the  most 
intellectual  of  its  women  attempted  to  participate  in  direct- 
ing public  affairs,  and  the  result  has  been  transmitted  to  us. 
They  wielded  a  short,  brilliant,  and  fatal  power.  From  their 
boudoirs  and  drawing-rooms  went  forth  the  resultant  force 
of  wit  enforced  by  beauty  and  fallacy  masked  by  flattery. 
Policies  which  desolated   the  kingdom  were   stimulated   in 


280  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

the  salons  of  Paris,  and  from  the  councils  of  female  partisans 
came  the  orders  to  shed  tlie  purest  blood  of  both  sexes.  The 
eagle  eye  of  Xapoleon  took  the  lesson  at  a  glance ;  he  em- 
ployed the  agency  of  women  for  their  power  at  intrigue,  and 
soigncz  Icsfcmmes  were  often  his  ominous  words  to  his  departing 
ambassadors.  Under  the  despotic  and  aristocratic  govern- 
ments they  have  more  tliau  once  undertaken  such  a  share 
in  politics,  but  it  has  been  a  service  in  the  interest  of  diplo- 
macy and  intrigue.  The  example  descended  to  the  common 
ranks,  and  the  political  female  clubs  of  Paris,  numbering  many 
thousands  of  members,  even  more  disorderly  than  the  disorderly 
clubs  of  men,  were  finally  suppressed  by  government  —  for 
cause.  It  is  a  subject  for  gratulation,  that  in  this  perversion  of 
their  nature  to  incompatible  functions  both  the  higher  and 
common  orders  of  the  sex  in  the  United  States  have  seen  no 
inducement  to  claim  the  right  or  imitate  the  example.  We 
cannot  fail  to  behold  in  contrast  the  mass  of  women  under 
the  older  governments  and  under  our  own.  There  has  not  been 
a  more  revolting  spectacle  than  the  mobs  of  women  run  mad 
with  politics,  in  tlie  first  French  revolution,  in  London  in  1780, 
in  Paris  again  at  the  close  of  the  last  war  with  Prussia,  in  which 
everything  of  the  possible  hideous  cast  its  shadow  upon  history. 
But,  according  to  the  light  within  them,  they  moved  on  the 
lower  plane  in  the  same  sphere  in  which  their  more  cultivated 
exemplars  moved  on  the  higher  plane ;  and  such  will  ever  be 
the  relation  of  the  higher  example  to  the  inferior  imitation. 
Different  has  been  the  conduct  of  the  women  of  America. 
In  the  more  elevated  and  educated  ranks  they  have  never 
brought  their  accomplishments  and  virtues  into  the  arena  of 
political  turmoil.  From  the  days  in  which  Mrs.  Hancock, 
the  wife  of  the  President  of  the  Congress,  amid  the  excitements 
of  that  trying  epoch,  exemplified  the  modesty,  the  dignity, 
and  the  discretion-  which  John  Adams  has  transmitted  to 
us  for  her  memorial,  down  to  our  own  time,  they  have 
followed  more  pure  and  comely  methods  of  influence.  And 
their   example,   also,   has   not   been   without    its    following. 


THE  CENTENNIAL   SITUATION   OF  WOMAN.  281 

Among  the  whole  mass  of  the  women  of  the  United  States  the 
order  of  social  existence  has  been  exempt  from  the  rude 
display  of  political  action.  Amid  the  passions  of  our  politics 
we  too  have  passed  through  many  mobs,  but  who  ever  heard 
of  an  American  woman  appearing  on  that  dread  theatre  in 
her  Amazonian  armor  ?  But  while  they  instinctively  avoid 
exposing  both  soul  and  body  to  the  uncongenial  attrition  of 
political  affairs,  they  have  not  failed,  in  periods  of  greatest 
excitement,  within  the  pale  of  their  fitness  but  to  farthest 
extent  of  human  benevolence,  to  discharge  the  noblest  of  all 
duties  to  the  state.  In  the  awful  period  of  the  late  war, 
leaving  to  man  the  sterner  obligations  of  patriotism,  woman 
was  yet  in  every  work  of  mercy,  in  the  weakened  household, 
in  sanitary  preparation,  in  the  labors  of  the  hosjoital,  in  the 
house  of  prayer,  at  the  burial  of  the  brave. 

I  trust  we  have  not  yet  receded  so  far  from  tlie  days  of 
Dr.  Franklin's  benignity  and  wisdom,  that  his  intluence,  so 
pre-eminent  over  the  other  sex  in  his  lifetime,  may  not  still 
be  cherished  with  tender  regard  by  their  successors.  In  one 
of  his  letters  to  a  granddaughter  he  gave  this  quaint  and 
candid  advice :  "  You  are  very  prudent  not  to  engage  in 
party  disputes.  Women  should  not  meddle  with  party  pol- 
itics, except  in  the  endeavor  to  reconcile  their  husbands, 
brothers,  and  friends,  who  happen  to  be  of  contrary  sides. 
If  your  sex  keep  cool,  you  may  be  the  means  of  cooling  ours 
the  sooner,  and  restoring  more  speedily  that  social  harmony 
among  fellow-citizens  which  is  so  desirable  after  long  and 
bitter  dissensions."  I  desire  to  echo  Dr.  Franklin's  good 
counsel,  in  the  hope  that  men  may  continue  to  feel,  for 
another  century  at  least,  that  in  consulting  a  wife,  a  mother, 
or  a  sister  on  these  subjects  of  excitement,  they  are  appeal- 
ing from  their  own  passions  and  prejudices,  and  not  to  them, 
embodied  in  a  second  self.  I  trust  that  the  members  of  this 
institution  will  concur  with  me  in  wishing  far  off  the  day 
when  their  ranks,  like  too  many  of  the  young  men  in  their 
own  schools,  shall  be  swept  into  the  vortex  of  dispute  about 


282  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

public  men  and  public  affairs.  If,  however,  there  be  any 
who  look  with  favor  upon  such  employment  of  their  time,  I 
beg  leave  to  ask  their  listening  ear  to  a  pleasantry  of  Addi- 
son :  "  There  is  nothing  so  bad  for  the  face  as  party-zeal. 
It  gives  an  ill-natured  cast  to  the  eye,  and  a  disagreeable 
sourness  to  the  look  ;  besides  that,  it  makes  the  lines  too  strono-. 
and  flushes  them  worse  than  brandy.  I  have  seen  a  woman's 
face  break  out  in  heats,  as  she  has  been  talkinu'  against  a 
great  lord,  whom  she  never  saw  in  her  life ;  and,  indeed,  I 
never  knew  a  party- woman  that  kept  her  beauty  for  a  twelve- 
month. I  would  therefore  advise  all  my  female  friends,  as 
they  value  their  complexion,  to  let  alone  all  disputes  of  this 
nature ;  though,  at  the  same  time,  I  would  give  free  liberty 
to  all  superannuated  motherly  partisans  to  be  as  violent  as 
they  please,  since  there  will  be  no  danger  either  of  their 
spoiling  their  faces  or  of  their  gaining  converts." 

If  it  be  asked,  what  then  is  woman's  sphere?  the  answer 
has  been  already  furnished  by  her  own  intelligent  judgment 
and  practice  under  the  best  civilization  wliich  the  world  has 
had.  The  choice  has  rested  with  her,  and  she  has  not  made  it 
in  doubt  or  hesitation.  She  has  properly  refused  to  be  limited 
or  controlled  by  certain  worn-out  catch-phrases,  of  which  one 
would  shut  her  up  for  life  as  a  nurse  to  the  sick-chamber 
and  another  would  consign  her  to  silence  as  a  prude,  or  to 
seclusion  as  a  nun.  She  is  right  in  agreeing  with  Sydney 
Smith,  that  woman  cannot  afford  to  be  compassionate  from 
eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  twelve  o'clock  at  night.  The 
modern  economies  have  met  her  on  this  ground,  and  have 
thrown  open  to  her  the  most  respectable,  the  most  delicate, 
and  the  most  responsible  occupations ;  and  she  has  taken  to 
them  with  an  exhilaration  that  belongs  only  to  the  noblest 
nature.  She  is  satisfied,  —  it  is  only  the  inquisitor,  still 
ringing  the  question  of  her  sphere,  who  is  dissatisfied.  She 
adheres  to  the  standard  by  which  tlie  graces  of  her  character 
have  been  measured  in  the  advancing  ideas  of  the  last  half- 
century.     It  is  her  choice  to  regard  herself  as  an  integral 


THE   CENTENNIAL   SITUATION   OF  WOMAN.  283 

part  of  the  plan  of  social  and  domestic  order,  out  of  which 
it  is  no  wish  of  hers  to  be  agitated  and  jostled  into  arenas 
alien  to  her  nature.  It  is  within  her  own  consciousness  that 
woman  is  the  core  and  centre  of  a  nation  of  homes ;  it  is 
within  her  own  knowledge  that  history,  literature,  and  re- 
ligion show  the  advancement  of  a  nation  to  he  in  its  homes. 
This  is  a  trite  doctrine,  but  not  triter  than  the  solar  sys- 
tem or  the  geological  formations,  nor  any  the  less  important. 
After  trial,  the  family  institution  is  the  world's  method ; 
without  the  appropriate  distribution  of  its  duties,  that  must 
dissolve  away ;  and  therefore  whatever  weakens  her  emj^ire 
there,  puts  in  peril  the  whole  vast  fabric.  She  is  the  adjuster 
of  society,  the  standard  of  its  moral  sanctions  and  its  purest 
sentiments,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  its  natural  and  ac- 
quired aesthetics.  It  is  in  the  daily  and  smaller  habitudes  of 
life  that  all  classes  find  the  average  of  their  stimulations  and 
pleasures  ;  and  her  presence  there  is  inspiration,  her  direction 
there  is  better  than  law  and  good  as  a  perpetual  song.  She 
is  the  ingenious  manager  of  the  national  manners,  which  we 
underestimate.  "Manners,"  said  Burke,  —  "manners  are  of 
more  importance  than  laws.  The  law  touches  us  but  here 
and  there,  now  and  then.  Manners  are  what  vex  or  soothe, 
corrupt  or  purify,  exalt  or  debase,  barbarize  or  refine  us,  by  a 
constant,  steady,  uniform,  irreversible  operation,  like  that  of 
the  air  we  breathe.  They  give  the  whole  form  and  color  to 
our  lives.  According  to  their  quality,  they  aid  morals,  they 
supply  them,  or  they  destroy  them."  I  may  add,  that  woman 
is  their  queen  and  their  law-giver.  In  no  country  so  much 
as  in  ours  is  it  needed  to  bear  in  mind  that  accordincr  to  her 
quality  will  be  their  quality.  In  no  other  country  is  it  so 
essential  that  her  influence  over  the  manners  of  the  people 
be  assisted  by  adding  to  her  natural  refinement  the  effects  of 
education,  by  preserving  her  born  decorum  from  the  tarnish 
of  •whatever  is  unfeminine. 

This    anniversary  fitly   takes   the  lesson   that   the    lieroic 
element  of  woman  is  in  moral   sentiment.     Whatever  of  the 


284  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

renown  of  women  of  the  century  now  survives,  comes  mostly 
from  tliat  domain.  Their  place  in  the  judgments  of  civiliza- 
tion hos  been  determined  by  the  rule  which  tlie  author  of 
their  being  established  as  the  pledge  of  the  security  of  soci- 
ety. This  rule  is  often  relaxed  by  men  in  judging  their  own 
sex,  but  it  is  observed  both  by  men  and  women  in  judging 
the  other  sex.  The  renown  of  eminent  men  often  partakes 
of  the  glare  of  great  achievement,  while  moral  oblitiuities  are 
condoned  or  overlooked.  Women  with  a  juster  religious 
sense  judge  their  own  sex  by  the  moral  test,  and  their  de- 
cision is  taken  up  by  the  voice  of  the  ages.  Tlie  genius  of 
Napoleon  still  captures  the  admiration  of  mankind,  in  spite 
of  his  crimes ;  but  the  Semiramis  of  the  North,  Catherine  of 
Eussia,  of  consummate  genius,  having  led  an  empire  out  of 
mediocrity  into  the  first  places  of  power,  is  seldom  mentioned, 
without  a  shudder.  Of  two  modern  queens  of  nations,  not 
unequal  in  natural  and  acquired  talent,  the  successor  of  the 
patroness  of  the  discoverer  of  a  new  world  lives  in  general 
contempt,  while  she  of  our  mother  country  is  descending  the 
years  in  the  light  of  benignant  fame.  The  heroism  of  woman 
is  a  moral  heroism  ;  it  is  a  principle  and  not  a  passion.  Her 
courage  is  of  duty  and  not  of  ambition,  and  her  passive  forti- 
tude is  lodged  among  the  proverbs  of  the  world.  The  maid 
of  Orleans  is  triumphant  as  a  historical  character,  because 
she  kept  her  innocence  and  rode  under  a  banner  spiritually 
consecrated.  When  the  two  emperors,  and  the  marshals  of 
France,  and  the  charge  of  the  six  hundred  shall  have  been 
forgotten,  the  name  of  Florence  Nightingale  will  still  travel 
on  to  the  posterities.  When  mankind  shall  not  much  re- 
member the  woman  of  genius  in  diplomacy  and  arms,  who 
held  the  ascendency  of  Germany,  her  weaker  daughter  of 
France  will  still  move  all  hearts  by  the  sublime  meekness 
and  divine  forgiveness  which  made  immortal  two  years  of 
martyrdom.  Of  all  that  female  array  of  Paris,  brilliant  in 
intellect,  which  made  even  an  epoch  of  blood  almost  attrac- 
tive, the  memorials  which  remain  after  ninety  years  are  the 


THE   CENTENNIAL   SITUATION    OF   WOMAN.  285 

memorials  of  Christian  fortitude  in  suffering.  The  gay  salon 
of  Madame  Roland,  which  controlled  an  administration,  is 
passing  into  oblivion,  and  her  own  name  lives  only  in  the 
heroic  invocation  which  she  uttered  for  all  time,  as  the  char- 
iot bearing  her  to  the  scaffold  wheeled  under  the  statue  of 
Liberty.  In  all  times  and  in  all  spheres  the  glory  of  woman- 
hood is  in  the  moral  sentiments. 

The  limitations  of  this  occasion  compel  me  to  draw  these 
remarks  to  a  close.  There  are  many  things  one  would  desire 
to  say,  which  must  be  omitted.  It  only  remains  for  me,  with 
the  parting  word,  to  remind  those  whom  I  have  the  honor  to 
address,  that  enlarged  responsibilities  come  always  with  wid- 
ening spheres  of  opportunity.  If  the  freedom  of  civil  rights 
has  opened  to  the  sex  the  gates  of  a  new  world,  they  are  to 
enter  not  only  to  possess  it,  but  to  organize  and  embellish  it. 
If  equality  of  privilege  and  honor  in  all  industry  is  before 
them,  the  universal  law  of  decorum  follows  there,  not  only 
to  protect  them,  but  to  be  itself  preserved.  If  almost  the 
whole  education  of  the  race  has  come  under  their  charge,  let 
them  be  mindful  that  the  hand  moulding  the  image  of  the 
age  be  set  to  the  finest  touches  of  art  under  the  purest  inspi- 
rations of  spirit.  If  in  conceded  homage  and  deference  they 
occupy  an  eminence  heretofore  unknown,  let  them  acknowl- 
edge it  with  the  fragrant  courtesy  of  their  nature.  Above 
all,  I  would  counsel  them  against  being  misled  into  that 
false  theory,  the  worst  of  our  time,  which  implies  antagonism 
between  the  sexes.  Women  are  not  a  class ;  they  are  co- 
ordinate factors  in  the  divine  problem  of  immortal  being ;  they 
are  elements  in  the  systems  of  the  world,  out  of  which  they 
can  neither  be  decomposed,  nor  be  resolved  into  independency 
of  existence.  The  accord  between  the  sexes  is  the  accord  of 
mutual  supremacy  and  of  mutual  allegiance. 

"  The  woman's  cause  is  man's.     They  rise  or  sink 
Together,  dwarfed  or  godlike,  hond  or  free  : 
For  she  that  out  of  Lethe  scales  with  man 
The  shining  steps  of  Nature,  shares  with  man 


286  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

His  nights,  his  days,  moves  with  him  to  one  goal, 
Stays  all  the  fair  young  planet  in  her  hands  — 
If  she  be  small,  slight-natured,  miserable, 
How  shall  men  grow  ? 

let  her  make  herself  her  own 

To  give  or  keep,  to  live  and  learn  and  be 

All  that  not  harms  distinctive  womanhood. 

For  woman  is  not  undeveloped  man. 

But  diverse:  could  we  make  her  as  the  man. 

Sweet  love  were  slain  :  his  dearest  bond  is  this. 

Not  like  to  like,  but  like  in  difference  : 

Yet  in  the  long  years  liker  must  they  grow; 

The  man  be  more  of  woman,  she  of  man  ; 

He  gain  in  sweetness  and  in  moral  height, 

Nor  lose  the  wrestling  thews  that  throw  the  world  ; 

She  mental  breadth,  nor  fail  in  childward  care, 

Nor  lose  the  childlike  in  the  larger  mind  ; 

Till  at  the  last  she  set  herself  to  man, 

Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words. 

Then  comes  the  statelier  Eden  back  to  men; 

Then  reign  the  world's  great  bridals,  chaste  and  calm, 

Then  springs  the  crowning  race  of  humankind." 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON. 

ADDRESS  AT   THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  STATUE    IN  NEW  YORK,  NOV.   20,  1880. 

I  EECALL,  as  if  it  were  yesterday,  that  forty-five  years  ago, 
in  one  of  the  vacations  of  a  schoolboy  visiting  New  York 
for  the  first  time,  I  strayed  into  the  Merchants'  Exchange 
on  Wall  Street.  It  was  the  hour  on  'change.  From  the 
confusion  of  tongues  all  about  me  my  attention  was  at  once 
attracted  to  the  marble  image  which  stood  there,  divinity  of 
the  place.  The  light  falling  from  above  gave  to  it  the 
warmth  of  life,  and  brought  out  its  features  in  the  beauty 
and  grace  of  intellectual  supremacy.  I  needed  not  to  be  told 
it  was  the  statue  of  Alexander  Hamilton.  Amid  that  din 
of  merchants,  to  whom  those  lips  spoke  only  through  the 
inspiration  of  art,  the  mind  of  a  stranger  wandered  backward 
over  half  a  century  to  the  memorable  convention  on  the 
Hudson,  where 

"  His  voice  drew  audience  still  as  night 
Or  summer's  noontide  air,"  — 

where  he  spoke  the  words  which  gave  to  New  York  her  com- 
merce and  her  merchants,  which  gave  this  great  State  to  the 
Union,  which  gave  the  Union  to  the  family  of  nations.  A 
few  months  afterwards  that  marble  crumbled  in  the  fire 
which  swept  over  the  lower  end  of  your  city,  and  until  now 
has  not  been  reproduced.  In  the  mean  time,  in  Massachu- 
setts, where  Hamilton  in  his  lifetime  had  so  many  and  fore- 
most friends,  where  his  memory  is  still  cherished  with  a 
fondness  not  surpassed  by  that  which  is  felt  for  any  other,  the 


288  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

public  spirit  of  a  private  citizen  has  erected  his  statue  in  the 
choicest  avenue  of  Boston ;  thus  anticipating  for  the  capital 
of  Xew  England  the  honor  and  distinction  which  New  York 
now  rightfully  appropriates  in  a  special  sense  to  herself. 
Not  to  you  alone,  but  to  the  citizens  of  other  States  it  may 
well  become  a  subject  of  felicitation,  that  the  filial  piety  and 
patriotic  enterprise  of  a  son  of  this  illustrious  man  to-day 
crowns  a  lengthened  life  by  kindly  enabling  us  to  unite 
with  him  in  paying  these  honors  to  his  father. 

The  fond  interest  with  which  Hamilton  was  regarded 
while  living,  quite  apart  from  other  public  men  of  his  time, 
found  extraordinary  expression  at  his  death  and  has  survived 
to  this  day.  His  career  has  much  of  a  charm  like  that  of 
romance.  A  fascination  attached  to  his  life  and  character, 
which,  though  it  was  felt  by  the  large  throng  of  his  friends, 
was  yet  so  subtile  and  delicate  as  in  part  to  elude  the  pen 
of  history  and  biography.  Amiable  beyond  the  usual  lot  of 
great  men,  with  a  frankness  that  was  artless,  a  temper  that 
was  always  open  and  never  concealed,  a  warmth  of  feeling 
which  averaged  a  tropical  birth  with  a  northern  residence,  a 
sincerity  that  did  honor  to  a  Huguenot  origin,  he  excited 
such  extended  and  lasting  friendships  as  are  rarely  grouped 
around  a  man  of  public  affairs.  These  qualities  were  set  in 
him  with  a  manliness  which  began  with  his  youth,  and  were 
accompanied  with  that  lofty  sense  of  personal  honor  which 
always  wins  among  mankind.  He  retained  the  honor  of  a 
soldier  upon  every  field  of  his  civil  fame.  Exhibiting  these 
qualities  in  his  public  life  from  the  start,  and  breaking  upon 
the  attention  of  his  countrymen  at  an  age  wlien  most  persons 
are  just  beginning  to  master  their  early  study,  he  awakened 
among  the  supreme  men  of  the  day  an  admiration  and  affec- 
tion which  after  three-quarters  of  a  century  still  lingers  as  a 
tradition,  like  the  mellow  glow  upon  a  distant  horizon.  The 
attachment  of  his  contemporaries  was  spontaneous,  it  strength- 
ened with  every  fresh  development  of  his  power,  it  over- 
looked his  infirmities,  it  sympathized  with  him  in  his  dreams 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON.  289 

of  glory.  Eminent  rivals  were  regarded  with  such  respect 
as  attended  William  Pitt,  while  Hamilton  excited  such 
affection  added  to  respect  as  followed  Charles  James  Fox. 
The  correspondence  which  has  come  down  to  us  abounds 
with  this  impression,  and  reveals  how  IVIeade  and  Tilghman, 
how  Laurens  and  Harrison,  how  Sedgwick  and  Sherman, 
how  all  those  who  knew  him  best,  manifested  in  their  relations 
the  ardor  and  devotion  which  they  would  have  bestowed 
only  upon  a  noble  nature  charged  with  magnetic  attrac- 
tions. La  Fayette  upon  all  occasions  addressed  him  in  such 
terms  as  belong  only  to  the  largest  confidence  of  the  warmest 
friendship.  The  great  heart  of  Washington  went  out  to  him 
and  stayed  by  him,  from  the  first  year  in  which  he  knew 
him  till  death  separated  them.  The  last  letter  from  Mount 
Vernon  was  written  to  Hamilton.  And  when  he  fell  there 
was,  from  New  Hampshire  to  the  Carolinas,  an  effusion  of 
universal  grief,  heightened  by  keenest  sense  of  personal  loss, 
which  in  all  that  was  tender  and  impressive  was  second 
only  to  that  which  followed  the  death  of  Washington.  Thou- 
sands in  every  State  gave  expression  to  their  feelings  in  the 
words  of  Fisher  Ames :  "  My  heart  penetrated  with  the  re- 
membrance of  Hamilton  grows  liquid  as  I  write,  and  I 
could  pour  it  out  like  water."  In  dedicating  this  memorial 
the  citizens  of  New  York  are  paying  their  tribute  to  a  char- 
acter who  interested  the  admiration  and  love  of  their  fathers 
as  no  man  before  or  since  has  done,  even  of  all  the  eminent 
sons  of  this  imperial  State. 

Of  the  statesmen  of  the  last  hundred '  years  I  cannot  at 
the  moment  recall  one,  save  the  second  Pitt,  who  resembled 
him  in  so  early  display  of  intellectual  powers,  so  steadily 
increasing  in  volume  and  richness  as  to  disappoint  expec- 
tation only  by  their  continuous  growth  to  the  end.  It  is 
this  prematureness,  which  surprised  an  age  familiar  with 
wise  and  great  men,  which  eighty  years  after  the  close  of 
his  public  life  still  attracts  us  as  a  revelation  overshadowing 
aU  the  ordinary  laws  of  mental  development.     We  scarcely 

19 


290  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

know  that  he  had  any  youth.  He  rose  to  conspicuous  ob- 
servation, he  rose  to  fame  in  this  city,  in  the  morning  of 
his  days.  Only  recently  landed  on  this  shore,  but  having 
already  given  his  heart  to  his  new  home,  we  lind  him  at 
seventeen  in  the  Great  Fields  engaged  in  public  speech  on 
non-importation,  exciting  that  rapt  attention  which  continued 
to  fasten  upon  him  more  closely  and  more  closely  still  for 
thirty  years  till  his  life  was  over.  At  eighteen,  he  wrote 
those  papers  for  the  public  press  which  brought  this  discord- 
ant colony  nearer  to  its  final  purpose,  which  were  quite  the 
M'onder  of  the  day  as  to  who  the  author  might  be,  which 
now  make  a  volume  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  pages  of  striking 
maturity  and  completeness.  A  year  later  he  threw  off  the 
incognito  of  an  anonymous  writer  and  appeared  under  his 
own  name  as  commander  of  artillery,  instructing  the  assem- 
bly of  this  province  in  the  necessity  of  supply  and  discipline. 
"We  behold  him  at  twenty  taken  into  the  military  family  of 
Washington,  who  judged  men  as  no  one  else  knew  so  well 
how  to  judge  them,  and  intrusted  with  duties  most  arduous 
and  delicate.  His  correspondence  for  three  years  in  that 
office  is  itself  a  monument.  You  will  find  there  letters 
written  at  the  age  of  twenty  which  cover  all  questions  of 
war,  which  explain  and  unfold  the  necessity  of  that  Fabian 
policy  which  history  has  since  accepted  as  one  of  the  pillars 
of  tlie  military  renown  of  Washington.  At  twenty-three, 
a  young  man  in  camp  and  having  been  in  no  position  of 
civil  experience,  he  wrote  the  remarkable  letter  to  Duane, 
which  mastered  the  problem  of  arms,  of  finance,  of  political 
powers,  of  the  gaping  defects  of  the  Confederation,  of  the 
dread  need  of  an  executive  ministry.  He  then  scented  as 
by  intuition  our  later  union.  At  twenty-four,  when  gloom 
hung  over  the  land,  he  prepared  the  still  more  remarkable 
paper  for  Eobert  ^lorris  on  the  financial  situation  and  rem- 
edy, exhausting  the  subject  of  commerce,  of  taxation,  of  a 
National  Bank,  and  shadowing  forth  the  relief  of  the  lessons 
of  history  to  the  distress  of  the   States.     We  behold  him 


ALEXANDER   HAMILTON.  291 

after  Yorktown  returned  at  twenty-five  to  New  York  and 
serving  a  term  in  the  Confederate  Congress,  where  he  left 
deep  and  lasting  impressions  ;  in  the  Constitutional  Conven- 
tion at  thirty,  dividing  the  time  between  his  service  there 
and  his  professional  duties  here ;  at  thirty-one,  the  chief 
representative  of  this  city  in  the  Convention  at  Pough- 
keepsie,  and  by  his  individual  prowess  carrying  the  decision 
of  that  body,  so  vital  to  the  success  of  the  Union  and  so 
imperial  with  results ;  at  thirty-three  the  most  important 
member  of  the  first  Cabinet,  the  organizing  spirit  of  this 
Government,  conceiving,  building  up  a  national  system  of 
credit  and  finance ;  and  through  a  period  of  four  years  the 
counsellor  and  guide  of  Washington,  preparing  opinions 
which  traversed  ground  before  unexplored  and  which  fill  vol- 
umes that  have  stood  the  severe  test  of  time.  I  know  of  noth- 
ing in  any  quarter  like  these  amazing  labors  and  results, 
which  were  crowded  into  the  brief  space  between  the  age  of 
twenty  and  of  thirty-three.  "  I  doubt,"  said  Eufus  Choate,  "  if 
Pascal,  if  Grotius,  if  Cassar,  if  Napoleon,  had  so  early  in  life 
revealed  powers  vaster  and  maturer." 

And  in  this  short  period,  at  intervals  snatched  from  the 
public  labors,  he  had  established  his  fame  as  a  jurist.  While 
he  was  illustrating  in  camp  what  Washington  declared  to 
John  Adams  that  Hamilton  possessed,  —  "qualities  essential  to 
a  great  military  character,"  —  while  he  was  acting  the  part  of 
first  advocate  for  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  while  he 
was  acting  the  part  of  first  organizer  and  methodizer  of  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  he  found  time  to  become 
also  first  of  lawyers.  Sheathing  his  sword  at  Yorktown,  he 
came  back  here  to  the  law,  to  the  amenities  of  citizenship, 
to  the  delights  of  domestic  life.  He  was  then  but  twenty- 
four  years  of  age.  During  the  next  nine  years,  and  the  nine 
years  after  retiring  from  the  Cabinet,  he  rose  on  the  broad 
field  of  a  national  reputation  to  a  rank  not  second  to  any 
lawyer  of  the  United  States.  What  a  public  life  that  must 
have  been  from  1775  to  1800,  of  which  three  fifths  was  de- 


292  ADDRESSES  OF  ALEXANDER   II.   BULLOCK, 

voted  to  official  and  two  fifths  to  private  station,  which  found 
him  at  the  opening  of  this  century  at  the  head  of  the  roll 
of  constitutional  lawyers,  of  financiers,  of  statesmen,  and  of 
publicists.  In  office  or  out  of  office  he  was  at  the  head  of 
the  roll  of  that  party,  not  less  brilliant  than  patriotic,  which 
gave  the  first  prestige  of  durability  and  power  to  the  Govern- 
ment. AVe  all  know  how  Ames  and  Cabot,  Pickering  and 
Otis,  Morris  and  Bayard,  Charles  Carroll  and  John  Jay,  Theo- 
dore Sedgwick  and  John  ]\Iarshall,  turned  to  him  as  the  mas- 
ter spirit  of  the  high  political  fellowship  which  surrounded 
the  Constitution  through  its  first  twelve  years.  We  know 
how  great  must  have  been  his  reputation  and  ascendency, 
since  his  foes  as  well  as  his  friends  ascribed  to  him  so  large 
a  share  in  the  policies,  the  measures,  and  personal  directions 
of  the  first  two  Olympiads  of  the  Government.  Truly  did 
they  confirm  the  language  of  Jefferson,  that  Hamilton  was  a 
colossus  to  his  party,  without  numbers  a  host  within  himself. 
Truly  did  they,  one  and  all,  alike  by  their  friendly  and  their 
unfriendly  acknowledgment  of  his  leadership,  manifest  their 
concurrence  with  the  Father  of  his  Country,  that  the  judg- 
ment of  Hamilton  was  intuitively  great.  He  was  a  partisan 
only  as  he  was  a  patriot.  He  passed  through  much  of  oj)po- 
sition  and  animosity,  but  no  disappointment  or  displeasure 
moved  him  from  devotion  to  the  public  interest  as  the  con- 
stant magnet  of  his  heart.  "This  in  my  eyes  is  sacred."  His 
discussion  and  argument  was  copious,  exhaustive,  and  vast. 
He  was  a  master  of  style,  a  model  for  all  who  seek  to  know 
the  art  of  enlightening  and  convincing.  "  In  his  speech  wis- 
dom blended  her  authority  with  her  charms."  It  is  pleasing 
to  read  his  argument,  a  clear  flow  of  thought,  without  strain 
or  conceit,  broadening  and  expanding  over  the  farthest  scope 
of  the  question  in  hand,  in  language  easy,  natural,  and  trans- 
parent, massive  with  simplicity  and  flexible  with  grace,  — 

"  Though  deep,  yet  clear  ;  though  gentle,  yet  not  dull ; 
Strong  without  rage  ;  without  o'erflowiug  full." 


ALEXANDER   HAMILTON.  293 

Bora  amid  the  influences  of  a  foreign  tongue,  be  possessed  a 
style  of  English,  at  seventeen,  which  surpassed  the  heads  of 
the  schools.  His  letter  from  camp  on  the  Hudson,  giving  to 
his  friend  Laurens  an  elaborate  and  familiar  narrative  of  the 
affair  of  Major  Andre,  contained  everything  which  history 
has  since  recorded,  in  language  of  simplicity,  sweetness,  and 
pathos,  which  makes  it  one  of  the  curiosities  of  our  Eevolu- 
tionary  literature. 

In  two  eventful  stages  of  our  annals,  distinct  though  in- 
timately connected,  Hamilton  proved  himself  a  chief  pillar 
of  the  public  security.  In  token  of  the  part  he  bore  in 
establishing  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  New  York 
should  preserve  and  decorate  his  monument  while  the  Union 
lasts.  Although  your  State  by  a  majority  of  its  delegates 
opposed  the  Constitution  in  the  great  Convention  of  '87, 
and  actually  retired  in  disgust  from  that  body  before  the 
final  action,  he  remained  to  ujDhold  the  hands  of  Wash- 
ington and  Madison,  and  at  the  close  implored  the  members  to 
unite  with  him  in  af&xing  their  signatures  to  the  instrument. 
Not  without  hesitation  as  to  some  of  its  features,  he  had  yet 
supported  it  by  the  whole  force  of  his  reasoning  and  elo- 
quence. And  when  that  scene  was  closed  and  the  Constitu- 
tion was  sent  out  into  the  States  for  their  approval,  one  peril 
having  been  overcome  only  to  open  the  way  for  another  of 
greater  violence  and  more  doubtful  issue,  he  advanced  to  the 
struggle  in  the  full  action  of  all  his  intellectual  powers.  Here 
in  New  York,  where  the  chances  were  two  to  one  against  the 
Government,  he  took  this  whole  undertaking  upon  his  own 
shoulders.  It  was  the  task  of  convincing  a  reluctant  people 
by  the  highest  attribute  of  human  nature,  by  the  force  of 
pure  reason.  He  used  the  instrumentality  of  the  written  and 
spoken  word,  each  in  its  highest  form.  Of  the  serial  papers. 
The  Federalist,  which  were  read  in  every  State,  more  than 
three  quarters  were  the  product  solely  of  his  pen,  are  still 
cited  as  a  legal  classic  in  courts  and  senates,  and  known 
wherever  our  language  is  spoken.     Seventy-five  years  ago  the 


294  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK, 

Ediiibiirfjli  Review,  calling  the  attention  of  Europe  to  these 
papers  of  Hamilton,  pronounced  them  "  a  work  which  exhib- 
ited an  extent  and  precision  of  information,  a  profundity  of 
research,  and  an  acuteness  of  understanding,  which  would 
have  done  honor  to  the  most  illustrious  statesmen  of  ancient 
or  modern  times."  These  labors  reached  their  acme  in  his 
service  as  delegate  from  this  city  in  the  State  Convention  at 
Poughkeepsie,  which  was  to  determine  whether  ours  should 
be  a  nation  and  a  government.  In  the  discussions  of  that 
body,  of  which  a  large  majority  of  the  members  had  assembled 
with  sentiments  hostile  to  the  Constitution,  he  exerted  him- 
self with  every  variety  of  argument,  with  every  form  of  elo- 
quence, with  every  art  and  grace  of  persuasion,  which  the 
gravity  of  the  occasion  demanded,  and  which  his  marvellous 
endowments  enabled  him  to  supply.  At  length  the  assembly, 
which  in  its  earlier  stages  would  have  dashed  to  the  ground 
the  last  hope  of  a  national  life,  reversed  its  purpose  and  cast 
the  weight  of  New  York  into  the  scale  for  the  Union.  Your 
own  great  Chancellor  Kent,  who  had  then  but  recently 
opened  his  office  in  Poughkeepsie,  who  was  a  witness  of  the 
forces  which  acted  on  that  historic  scene,  afterwards  declared 
that  the  decision  of  New  York  must  forever  be  attributed  to 
the  influence  of  Alexander  Hamilton. 

And  now,  after  ninety  years  of  life  under  this  Constitution, 
we  are  enabled  to  look  back  to  the  part  he  acted,  to  the  inter- 
pretation he  gave  of  the  public  necessities,  and  to  pronounce 
that  experience  has  vindicated  his  judgment.  Every  one  of 
the  excitements  which  have  been  called  crises  since  the 
Virginia  resolutions  of  '98,  seeming  at  the  time  of  their 
occurrence  to  be  a  -test  of  the  strength  of  the  Govern- 
ment, has  illustrated  the  acuteness  and  breadth  of  his  dis- 
cernment as  a  civic  interpreter.  He  forecast  the  nullification 
of  1832.  "It  is  inseparable  from  the  disposition  of  bodies 
who  have  a  constitutional  power  of  resistance,  to  examine 
the  merits  of  a  law."  Daniel  Webster  in  the  Senate  and 
Andrew  Jackson  in  the  Executive  office  repeated  the  doctrine 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON.  295 

of  Hamilton.     The  present  occasion  affords  neither  time  nor 
desire  to  enter  upon  enough  of  detail  to  meet  the  cavils  of 
those  who  cannot  speak  well  of  him,  —  if  any  such  there  be, 
—  but  it  is  fit  to  recall  to-day  in  a  general  sense  the  impor- 
tance of  his  lessons.     He  was  the  champion,  he  was  the  father, 
of  Nationalism  against  Statism.     The  honor  and  power  of 
the  States  he  sought  neither  to  disj)arage  nor  to  obscure.     In 
a  notable  speech  in  the  New  York  Convention  he  pictured 
the  expanding  glory  of  the  States  within  their  sphere,  and  of 
the  Union  as  the  central  security  for  all.     He  saw  national 
success  only  in  national  sovereignty,  under  which  national 
laws  should  operate  on  individuals  as  directly  as  the  laws  of 
the  States.     The  denial  of  his  doctrine,  the  theory  of  Statism, 
for  two  generations  having  control  of  the  Government,  brought 
many  trials   upon  the  people  of  this  nation,  and  at  length 
brought  them  face  to  face  into  tlie  presence  of  a  revolt  which 
threatened  the  overtlirow  of  their  Government.     That  crisis 
now  past  and  that  danger  now  escaped,  it  is  wisdom  as  well 
as  justice  to  remember  our  obligations  to  our  prophets  and 
our  guides.     To  the  instructions  of  Hamilton,  which  lodged 
in  the  minds  of  three  generations  some  just  conceptions  of 
this  nation,  clothed  with  full  powers  to  develop  and  embellish 
all  its  parts  in  peace,  clothed  with  full  powers  to  defend  and 
save  itself  against  the  levy  of  any  of  its  parts  in  war,  —  to 
the  instructions  of  Webster,  who,  when  Nationalism  and  Stat- 
ism presented  their  rival  pretensions  under  questions  which 
menaced  the  peace  of  the  Union,  delineated  to  the  people 
with  new  and  yet  clearer  light  the  constitutional  division 
and  distribution  of  powers,  —  to  Alexander  Hamilton  and  to 
Daniel  Webster,  the  citizens  of  this  country  are  largely  in- 
debted for  the  political  education  and  political  faith  which 
enabled  them  to  stand,  and  endure,  and  prevail,  when  the 
conflict  of  arms  was  thrust  upon  them. 

His  later  and  more  conspicuous  service  to  this  nationality, 
which  will  ever  associate  his  name  with  our  Government,  was 
given  to  its  first  administration.     To  aid  him  in  imj)arting 


29G  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

life  to  a  government  which  had  come  to  his  hands  only  as 
yet  a  body  of  barren  formulas  and  theories  to  be  developed, 
applied,  and  enforced,  —  to  summon  into  being  as  by  the  stroke 
of  the  enchanter  a  system  of  national  credit  without  which 
the  heroic  attainment  of  fifteen  previous  years  would  have 
passed  away  as  an  illusion,  —  Washington  called  to  his  side  a 
young  man  of  thirty-three  years.  The  work  committed  to 
him  was  the  work  of  creation.  From  chaos  he  was  to  evoke 
methods  and  syst^is.  In  the  presence  of  a  vast  public  debt, 
the  heritage  of  war,  of  unascertained  and  crippled  resources, 
of  a  moral  sense  of  obligation  which  had  already  begun  to 
degenerate  under  the  pressure  of  distress,  of  the  discordant 
jealousies  of  the  States  long  wedded  to  the  worship  of  their 
own  divinities,  of  men  not  now  united  as  in  the  council 
of  '76  but  divided  by  sectional  rivalry  and  i)ersonal  am- 
bition, he  was  to  create  and  organize  a  body  of  public 
credit,  supported  by  p»ublic  revenue,  which,  if  it  were  to  be 
good  for  anything,  must  place  the  new  nation  in  the  confi- 
dence of  the  world.  We  honor  the  head  of  the  Treasury  in 
our  own  time  if  he  so  adjusts  the  liabilities  and  resources 
of  a  great  and  affluent  nation  of  fifty  millions  as  to  give  it 
an  equality  of  credit  with  old  and  tried  governments.  But 
ninety  j^ears  ago,  with  but  three  millions  of  inhabitants,  with- 
out any  system  of  taxation  and  revenue,  without  knowledge 
of  the  public  capacities  or  possil)ilities,  surrounded  by  a  dis- 
united council,  Hamilton  was  called  to  fit  to  such  a  situation 
a  newly  created  sense  of  honor  in  the  nation,  a  newly  created 
system  for  funding  an  immense  debt,  of  revenue  internal  and 
external  so  pledged  as  to  challenge  the  faith  of  the  world,  of 
a  fiscal  agency  which  should  melt  thirteen  separate  systems 
into  one  of  national  unity  and  energy.  It  was  the  era  of  the 
beginning  of  a  great  nation,  and  it  is  one  of  the  providences 
of  our  history  that  ihe  era  produced  a  genius  equal  to  the 
exigency.  He  laid  the  foundations  of  our  national  honor  in 
his  own  consciousness.  American  credit,  never  since  doubted 
on  the  globe,  was  prefigured  and  provided  in  his  own  capa- 


ALEXANDEK  HAMILTON.  297 

cious  mind.  So  long  as  that  credit  shall  continue  untarnished 
the  remembrance  of  him  who  conceived  and  established  it 
will  continue  to  awaken  a  glow  in  the  heart  of  every  Ameri- 
can citizen,  and  the  words  of  his  eulogy  spoken  by  Webster 
will  meet  a  response  from  every  generous  mind :  "  He  smote 
the  rock  of  the  national  resources,  and  abundant  streams 
of  revenue  gushed  forth.  He  touched  the  dead  corpse  of 
the  public  credit,  and  it  sprang  upon  its  feet.  The  fabled 
birth  of  Minerva,  from  the  brain  of  Jove,  was  hardly  more 
sudden  or  more  perfect  than  the  financial  system  of  the 
United  States,  as  it  burst  from  the  concej)tions  of  Alexander 
Hamilton." 

This  extraordinary  man  was  wafted  upon  our  shore  at  a 
time  which  was  rich  in  strong  and  original  men,  such  as  are 
apt  to  be  the  product  of  a  period  deeply  thoughtful  and  revo- 
lutionary.    He  had  none  of  the  advantage  of  his  peers  of 
native  birth,  none  of  the  inspiration  of  their  early  youth,  and 
none  of  the  promise  which  sprang  to  them  from  the  ties 
of  American  kindred.     But  the  endowments  of  his  nature 
quickly  made  good  to  him  a  fulness  of  compensation,  and  in 
seventeen  years  from  his  landing  at  your  wharf,  an  obscure 
mercantile  correspondent,  there  was  no  reputation  on  this 
continent  which  threw  a  shadow  over  his.    The  strangely  and 
harmoniously  blended  currents  of  his  Huguenot  and  Scottish 
descent,  warmed  in  the  tropics  and  tempered  under  these 
northern  skies,  supplied  a  quickening  sensibility  and  enthu- 
siasm to   his  ambition  and   his   patriotism.     Throughout  a 
career  which,  through  an  excess  of  frankness  that  verged  on 
imj)rudence,  stirred  the  asperity  of  rivals,  he  held  to  the  last 
the  confidence  of  the  public,  the  friendship  of  the  best  men 
in  all  the  States ;  and  the  pang  of  national  loss  is  still  recalled 
at  the  mention  of  his  name. 


THE   CENTENNIAL   OF  THE   MASSACHUSETTS 

CONSTITUTION. 

PKEPAKED  AT  THE  REQUEST  OF  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  AMERICAN  ANTI- 
QUARIAN SOCIETY,  AND  READ  AT  THE  SEMI-ANNUAL  MEETING  OF  THE 
SOCIETY,  IN   BOSTON,  APRIL   27,  1881. 

The  Colony  of  Massachusetts  had  hardly  secured  a  firm 
foothold  here  as  a  permanent  settlement,  exercising  the 
functions  of  government,  when  the  colonists  began  to  make 
a  demand  for  a  formula  of  securities  or  liberties,  the  equiva- 
lent of  -which  is  nearly  expressed  by  our  term  "  constitution." 
The  Englishman,  removed  to  a  home  in  Massachusetts  Bay, 
passed  at  once  under  the  elation  and  expansion  of  a  con- 
scious freeman.  The  records  of  that  time  reveal  to  us,  as 
clearly  as  any  history  can  disclose  the  consciousness  of  a 
generation  of  men  two  centuries  and  a  half  after  their  exist- 
ence, that  the  freshly  arrived  immigrant  felt  the  traditional 
restraints  of  his  European  life  falling  from  him,  and  was 
consciously  invested  with  new  dignity  and  hope,  with  new 
resolve  and  power.  Within  four  years  after  the  coming  of 
Winthrop  the  settlers  became  impatient  that  their  liberties 
should  be  registered  in  clearly  defined  form  and  ordinance. 
Tills  impatience  manifested  itself  as  early  as  1634  in  palpa- 
ble proceedings,  which  aimed  at  having  their  rights  reduced 
to  the  letter  and  form  which  should  limit  even  the  magistrates 
who  had  their  highest  confidence.  Having  already  obtained 
the  right  of  po})ular  representation  by  deputies,  they  secured 
in  1635  the  appointment-of  a  commission,  as  we  should  now 
call  it,  which  should  "  frame  a  body  of  grounds  of  laws,  in 
resemblance  to  ]\Iagna  Charta,  which  should  be  received  for 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     299 

fundamental  laws."  This  commission,  several  times  changed 
as  to  its  members,  finally  secured  in  1641  the  enactment  of 
the  code  of  a  hundred  laws,  called  the  Body  of  Liberties,  of 
which  a  copy  was  discovered  in  the  old  Athenaeum  in  Boston 
by  Mr.  Francis  C.  Gray  about  sixty  years  ago.  This  first 
American  code  of  public  and  private  securities,  the  Magna 
Charta  of  that  day,  may  in  a  certain  sense  be  termed  the 
first  Constitution  of  this  Commonwealth  ;  or  rather,  reading 
the  articles  in  the  light  of  all  which  has  happened  since,  I 
should  venture  to  call  them  the  Massachusetts  Institutes.  A 
perusal  of  this  code  cannot  fail  to  vindicate  the  claim  of  its 
author,  Nathaniel  Ward,  minister  of  the  town  of  Ipswich,  to 
our  grateful  remembrance  for  having  brought  to  America 
great  benefits  from  his  study  and  practice  of  law  in  England ; 
and  I  am  sure  that  every  thoughtful  reader  of  this  Puritan 
pandect  will  cordially  concur  in  the  opinion,  which  forty 
years  ago  Mr.  Gray  pronounced  before  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society,  that  it  manifests  a  quality  of  wisdom, 
equity,  and  public  adaptation  far  in  advance  of  the  time  in 
which  it  was  written.  To  this  opinion  I  will  add,  that  after 
allowance  for  that  portion  of  these  Institutes  which  was 
derived  from  the  Pentateuch,  and  which  must  be  accepted 
as  the  reflected  sentiment  of  a  theocracy  which  is  scarcely 
appreciable  in  our  own  time,  there  are  other  parts  of  this 
constitutional  breviate  which  bear  the  marks  of  bold  and 
statesmanlike  originality  fit  for  the  affairs  of  a  complete 
modern  commonwealth.  That  they  may  be  regarded  as  hav- 
ing been  the  forecasting  of  the  coming  state  is  attested  by 
some  of  them  having  since  been  incorporated  into  our  present 
Constitution.  Although  these  Fundamentals  were  adopted 
for  only  a  term  of  three  years,  yet  the  more  important  of 
them  passed  into  the  volume  of  enduring  colonial  legislation, 
and  aided  largely  in  the  gradual  framing  of  the  beneficent 
fabric  which  now  overshadows  us  with  the  safety  which  every- 
body feels,  but  which  not  everybody  traces  to  its  simple  and 
august  beginning. 

o  o  o 


300  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   II.   BULLOCK. 

During  the  one  hundred  and  forty-four  years  which  inter- 
vened between  the  founding  of  the  colony  and  tlie  first  deci- 
sive act  of  Gage  at  Salem  in  1774,  which  heralded  a  new 
era,  the  people  of  Massachusetts  continued  under  the  govern- 
ment of  the  charters.  But  during  the  whole  of  this  period 
there  was  a  constant  though  varying  accumulation  and  cohe- 
sion of  the  elements  of  a  sovereign  and  free  state.  Ours  was 
in  many  respects  a  free  republic  from  the  start,  and  our 
provincial  annals  abound  in  prophetic  signs  of  coming  inde- 
pendence. The  spirit  of  this  independence  was  never  in 
profound  sleep,  from  the  first  and  singular  fortifying  of  the 
harbor,  five  years  after  the  advent,  to  the  day  of  the  first  levy 
of  arms  in  the  next  century.  In  many  of  those  years  kings 
were  so  deeply  engrossed  in  home  pleasures  and  home  poli- 
tics, and  in  many  other  years  the  Puritans  were  so  deeply 
engrossed  in  their  own  civil  and  religious  strifes,  that  the 
reader  of  events  is  often  diverted  from  observinq;  the  under- 
current  which  was  steadily  bearing  the  state  towards  the  only 
ultimate  result.  This  province  was  at  no  time  without 
statesmen  grounded  in  the  learning  of  the  English  Consti- 
tution, and  in  all  the  progressive  stages  of  the  rising  local 
republic  their  discernment  was  fully  equal  to  every  changing 
situation.  In  that  school  of  trial  they  were  practising  them- 
selves for  their  purpose  more  rapidly  than  they  knew,  and 
were  practising  a  more  profound  policy  than  was  know^n  by 
their  kings.  Their  purpose  as  freemen  was  frequently  held 
in  reserve  by  a  masterly  suppression,  and  their  assurance  as 
prophets  M-as  frequently  held  in  check  by  a  masterly  diplo- 
macy. Under  Cromwell  the  Massachusetts  Puritan  moved  in 
straight  lines  towards  independence,  under  Charles  restored 
the  Massachusetts  Puritan  was  politic  as  a  IMachiavel  or  a 
Talleyrand ;  but  under  every  reign  he  was  constantly  ad- 
vancing in  the  grooves  of  destinv,  sometimes  a  little  tortuous 
and  sometimes  very  direct, -always  towards  his  freedom.  Such 
drift  and  purpose  must  sometime  reach  its  end,  and  when  a 
king  so  resolute  and  obstinate  as  George  the  Third  sat  on  the 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     301 

throne,  and  a  Puritan  so  resolute  and  obstinate  as  Samuel 
Adams  directed  Massachusetts,  the  end  could  no  longer  be 
postponed. 

The  adoption  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776 
introduced  in  the  several  States  new  forms  of  government 
which  were  without  precedent  or  example  in  the  world. 
When  colonial  dependency  was  annulled  and  autonomy  took 
its  place  in  thirteen  republics,  a  new  method  of  formulating 
the  will  of  states  came  into  use  and  became  henceforth 
distinctively  The  American  System.  Written  constitutions, 
framed  by  the  people  for  their  own  government,  and  made 
unalterable  even  by  themselves  save  in  most  indubitable 
and  solemn  manner,  accepted  as  the  only  source  of  power 
to  all  administrations  and  absolute  criteria  of  security  to  all 
subjects,  have  now  been  in  use  here  during  a  century  and 
have  set  us  apart  from  the  other  peoples  of  the  globe.  The 
adoption  of  the  American  plan  was  a  logical  necessity. 
The  dissolution  of  dependency  cast  Americans  upon  their 
own  capacity  for  government,  with  no  guidance  except  their 
knowledge  of  history  and  their  own  shackled  experience. 
They  had  grown  up  in  the  knowledge  of  the  muniments  of 
the  British  Constitution,  but  the  elemental  principles  of  that 
constitution  for  public  and  private  liberty  lay  spread  over 
five  centuries  and  a  half  since  Magna  Charta,  had  never  had 
any  existence  as  a  code,  and  had  neither  the  unity  of  one 
fixed  interpretation  by  continuous  generations  nor  any  sanc- 
tion of  immutability.  Since  English  constitutional  liberties 
had  been  in  their  origin  concessions  from  the  crown,  given 
in  times  of  exceptional  popular  awakening,  even  the  repe- 
tition of  the  demand  and  concession  from  reign  to  reign  had 
scarcely  given  the  ease  of  repose  to  the  mind  of  the  subject. 
According  to  the  authority  of  Professor  Creasy,  in  his  work 
on  the  English  Constitution,  the  terms  of  Magna  Charta 
itself  have  needed  to  be  confirmed  by  kings  and  parliaments 
upwards  of  thirty  times.  Even  in  the  present  day  of  estab- 
lished construction,  in  which  the  English  Constitution  has 


302  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

attained  a  complete  solidity  of  crystallization,  if  we  seek  to 
find  its  rise  and  growth  we  have  to  read  with  collating  care 
the  histories  of  Hallam  and  May,  extending  over  a  period 
of  nearly  five  huudn^d  years ;  and  after  all  the  reading  we 
come  to  no  such  muniments  as  those  of  our  own  written 
Constitution,  founded  in  a  universally  acknowledged  social 
compact,  "  the  whole  people  covenanting  with  each  citizen 
aud  each  citizen  covenanting  with  the  whole  people ; "  so 
unshackled  in  outline,  so  solid  in  framework,  so  solemn  in 
sanction,  as  to  be  beyond  every  fear  short  of  revolution.  The 
term  "  unconstitutional "  as  it  is  used  in  England  bears  a  sig- 
nification altogether  different  from  its  meaning  in  ]\Iassachu- 
setts.  "By  the  term  'unconstitutional,'"  says  Hallam,  "as 
distinguished  from  the  term  'illegal,'  I  mean  a  novelty  of 
much  importance,  tending  to  endanger  the  established  laws," 
—  a  definition  which  scarcely  reaches  the  incisiveness  of  a 
decree  of  unconstitutionality  pronounced  by  the  highest  ju- 
dicial tribunal  of  an  American  state.  It  is  true  that  many 
of  the  constitutional  guaranties  which  the  people  of  this 
State  a  century  ago  ingrafted  upon  their  form  of  government 
had  been  inherited  by  them,  and  had  become  so  sacred  by 
tradition  and  use  that  no  tribunal  would  ever  after  have 
been  likely  to  deny  them ;  but  for  their  double  assurance 
they  resolved  to  re-define  them,  to  reduce  them  to  a  system 
and  a  code,  to  add  many  things  which  could  have  had  no 
existence  under  a  monarchy,  and  to  throw  about  them  safe- 
guards of  their  own  creation. 

This  necessity  for  a  written  constitution  was  reinforced 
by  another  consideration.  Tlie  advance  in  modern  thought 
on  government  had  at  that  time  reached  one  important  con- 
clusion on  this  side  of  the  water  never  before  fully  recognized 
on  the  other,  nor  indeed  recognized  there  now  to  anything 
like  the  extent  of  the  American  opinion.  I  refer  to  the 
strict  division  of  government  into  co-ordinate  branches,  each 
exclusive  of  the  others,  nowhere  else  exjoressed  as  in  the 
American  constitutions.      There    is   no   one  feature  of    our 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     303 

government  which  so  clearly  insures  the  security  of  public 
or  private  rights  as  the  setting  the  judicial  power  solemnly 
apart  as  a  governing  organ  of  the  constitution,  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  arm  of  the  executive  and  legislature ;  and  this 
was  a  stage  of  advancement  which  had  not  been  made  in  a  de- 
gree of  perfection  anywhere  before  the  American  Eevolution. 
The  men  of  Massachusetts  saw  the  necessity  of  making  this 
eminent  consecration  of  the  judiciary  certain  and  enduring 
by  a  fundamental  liberty  recorded  in  written  and  unmistak- 
able words.  They  had  seen  in  the  parent  country  the  ulti- 
mate decision  on  judicial  appeal  lodged  in  one  of  the  houses 
of  the  legislature,  and  they  saw  no  way  of  closing  the  door 
upon  this  exposure  to  abuse,  but  by  a  written  constitution 
which  should  shut  off  and  protect  a  pure  and  fearless  judi- 
ciary against  encroachment  from  any  quarter.  Englishmen 
themselves  have  learned  to  regard  the  American  plan,  under 
which  each  co-ordinate  power  is  protected  from  every  other 
power  by  registered  constitutional  language,  as  the  conserva- 
tor of  every  right  and  interest,  of  every  class  and  condition ; 
and  during  their  excitement  over  the  Eeform  Bill  fifty  years 
ago,  when  the  upper  house  barely  escaped  being  swamped 
by  the  crown,  their  conservative  statesmen  did  not  hesitate 
to  acknowledge  the  superior  safety  of  the  written  constitu- 
tions of  our  States. 

The  statesmen  of  Virginia  have  justly  boasted  that  theirs 
was  the  first  written  constitution,  formed  by  a  free  and  sov- 
ereign state,  which  the  world  has  possessed.  The  State  con- 
vention from  which  this  instrument  emanated  assembled 
early  in  May,  1776,  several  weeks  before  the  suljject  of 
recommendinar  new  governments  in  the  States  was  acted  on 
by  the  Continental  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  and  that  ancient 
State  may  rightfully  wear  in  its  coronet  this  high  historical 
distinction.  No  other  State  has  the  power,  no  other  State  has 
the  desire,  to  dispute  this  impressive  priority  in  the  noblest 
group  of  governments  of  modern  time.  But  the  truth  of  this 
history  is  only  fully  completed  in  the  statement  that  nearly 


304  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER  H.   BULLOCK. 

two  years  before  that  time  Massachusetts  had  initiated  pro- 
ceedings which  had  the  same  purpose  in  view,  and  had 
ah'cady  set  up  self-government  over  its  domain.  On  the  17th 
of  June,  1774,  the  date  of  practical  independence  in  Massa- 
chusetts, the  last  day  of  any  other  government  and  the  first 
day  of  its  own  government  on  its  own  soil,  the  House  of 
Assembly,  in  session  at  Salem,  with  its  door  locked  against 
the  Governor,  while  the  decree  of  its  dissolution  was  read  on 
the  stairs  outside,  provided  for  a  provincial  House  of  Eepre- 
sentatives  to  take  the  place  of  the  General  Court  which  was 
never  again  to  be  convened.  Massachusetts  was  launched, 
somewhat  unceremoniously  to  be  sure,  but  none  the  less  cer- 
tainly, the  first  autonomous  republic  in  America ;  and  Samuel 
Adams  was  the  master  and  guide  of  the  event.  Before  any 
counsel  could  come  from  Philadelphia,  because  it  was  before 
there  was  any  Congress  at  Philadelphia  to  give  counsel,  he 
commanded  the  situation  at  Salem  on  that  historical  day,  and 
he  first  in  America  turned  the  key  on  monarchy.  The  history 
of  self-government  in  this  Commonwealth  tlius  starts  with 
the  fact  that  its  people  for  the  space  of  a  whole  year  were 
without  any  direction  beyond  that  of  this  provincial  Assembly 
and  of  the  Committee  of  Safety,  and  that  all  the  while,  with- 
out any  regular  executive,  and  in  the  presence  of  hostile 
arms,  they  maintained  civil  order  and  brought  no  scandal  on 
liberty  or  justice.  This  provincial  Assembly,  stimulated  to 
take  another  step  forward  by  the  affair  at  Lexington  and 
Concord  of  April  19,  proceeded  on  May  16,  1775,  under  the 
counsel  of  General  Warren,  to  ask  the  advice  of  the  Congress 
at  Philadelphia  upon  the  best  method  of  exercising  the 
powers  of  civil  government ;  on  June  9  the  Congress  ad- 
vised that  the  colony,  accepting  the  singular  hypothesis  tliat 
the  office  of  governor  was  to  be  treated  as  vacant,  should 
clothe  a  newly  chosen  council  with  the  executive  power 
"until  a  governor  of  his  Majesty's  appointment  would  con- 
sent to  govern  according  to  its  charter ; "  and  only  ten  days 
afterwards,  on  June  19,  a  call  was  made  for  the  election  of  a 


CENTENNIAL    OF    THE    MASSACHUSETTS    CONSTITUTION.     305 

provincial  assembly,  which  only  thirty  days  later,  on  July 
19,  convened  in  Watertown.  In  their  anxiety  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  civil  functions  of  society  the  people  moved 
with  a  rajiidity  and  quietness  which  illustrated  their  earnest- 
ness of  purpose  and  their  solemn  sense  of  responsibility. 
This  body  at  once  elected  a  new  set  of  councillors  to  act  iu 
the  double  capacity  of  legislative  and  executive  administra- 
tion, with  James  Bowdoin  as  their  president ;  thus  planting 
a  provisional  government  upon  a  fiction  of  law  which  was 
the  ultimate  as  yet  reached  by  the  wisdom  at  Philadelphia, 
and  upon  an  anomalous  confusion  of  the  organs  of  govern- 
ment M'hich  was  destined  to  continue  four  years  longer. 
Although  civil  process  and  appointments  were  issued  in  the 
name  of  tlie  king,  the  commission  of  John  Adams  as  Chief 
Justice  being  conferred  in  that  style,  the  public  endured  this 
anomaly  with  patience  until  May  of  1776.  On  the  first 
day  of  that  month,  now  as  before  acting  in  advance  of  the 
Congress  at  Philadelphia,  the  processes  and  commissions  of 
Massachusetts  were  ordered  by  its  leaders  to  run  in  the  name 
of  its  "government  and  people,"  in  lieu  of  that  of  the  king. 
This  was  two  weeks  before  John  Adams  succeeded,  on  the 
15th  of  May,  in  carrying  through  the  Continental  Congress 
his  celebrated  resolution  for  the  suppression  of  every  kind  of 
authority  of  tlie  crown,  and  advising  the  several  colonies  to 
establish  their  own  governments  ;  which  resolution  itself  was 
adopted  two  weeks  before  the  question  of  declaring  indepen- 
dence came  to  its  sublime  decision,  and  which  he  proudly 
named  the  cutting  of  the  Gordian  knot.  Now  for  tlie  first 
time  our  own  legislative  assembly  took  the  preliminary  steps 
for  forming  a  State  constitution.  Entering  upon  the  subject  in 
June,  1776,  the  Assembly  decided  on  tlie  17th  day  of  Septem- 
ber to  advise  the  people  to  choose  their  deputies  to  the  next 
General  Court  with  full  power  to  frame  a  constitution ;  and 
this  advice  was  repeated  May  5,  in  1777.  Although  in  the 
interim  after  the  dissolution  of  this  Assembly  the  people  in 
several  public  conventions,  notably  in  the  county  of  Worcester, 

20 


30G  ADDRESSES    OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

and  in  many  of  their  town  meetings,  had  insisted  upon  the 
calling  of  a  special  convention  solely  for  so  grave  a  work 
as  the  framing  of  a  new  government,  yet  a  majority  of  the 
representatives  came  together  fully  authorized  to  enter  upon 
this  great  business ;  a  joint  committee  of  the  Council  and 
Assembly  agreed  upon  a  constitution,  which  was  approved  by 
the  two  bodies,  February  28, 1778,  and  was  sent  out  in  March 
for  popular  ratification.  It  is  one  of  the  omissions  in  our 
annals  that  the  proceedings  of  this  committee  were  never 
given  to  the  public  inspection. 

But  this  constitution,  which  required  the  assent  of  two 
thirds  of  those  voting  on  it  to  secure  its  acceptance,  received 
only  two  thousand  of  the  twelve  thousand  votes  which  were 
returned  ;  partly  perhaps  because  of  its  imperfect  delineation 
and  division  of  government  powers ;  in  part  no  doubt  because 
it  was  not  accompanied  by  a  Declaration  of  Rights,  on  which 
at  that  time  the  popular  heart  was  strongly  set ;  and  chiefly 
because  of  the  general  conviction  that  our  organic  framework 
of  government  could  properly  come  only  from  a  convention 
chosen  solely  and  sacredly  for  that  one  piece  of  work.  This 
first  form  of  a  constitution,  contrasted  with  the  orderly  and 
stately  instrument  afterwards  framed  and  adopted,  exhibits 
most  glaring  defects,  whilst  some  of  its  incongruities  reviewed 
in  the  light  of  the  subsequent  experience  of  a  century  would 
now  fail  to  command  respect.  The  Governor  and  Lieutenant- 
Governor  were  to  have  "  a  seat  and  a  voice  in  the  Senate  ; " 
the  Governor  was  to  be  president  of  the  Senate;  and  in  the 
distribution  of  the  functional  powers  of  government  "the 
Governor  and  Senate  "  are  spoken  of  in  a  manner  correspond- 
ing to  our  present  municipal  phraseology  of  "  the  Mayor  and 
Aldermen,"  in  strange  mingling  of  the  executive  and  legisla- 
tive departments.  The  instrument  contained  no  provision  for 
an  executive  council,  and  the  high  power  of  executive  pardon 
was  lodged  with  the  Governor,  Lieutenant-Governor,  and 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  or  "  eitlier  two  of 
them."     Senators  for  each  district  were  to  be  chosen  by  a 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     307 

vote  of  the  whole  people  of  the  State.  All  persons  not  of  the 
Protestant  religion  were  made  ineligible  to  either  the  execu- 
tive, legislative,  or  judicial  orders  of  the  government.  The 
dignity  and  independence  of  the  executive  were  very  inade- 
quately provided.  It  is  unnecessary  to  pursue  the  subject 
with  further  detail.  The  vote  of  the  people  showed  that  they 
deemed  the  structure  of  this  constitution  an  utter  failure,  and 
only  one-sixth  part  of  the  ballots  were  given  in  favor  of  its 
acceptance.  A  remarkable  demonstration  in  the  canvass  tf 
its  merits  was  made  by  a  convention  of  many  towns  of  the 
county  of  Essex  held  at  Ipswich  in  April,  1778,  which 
appointed  a  committee  to  report  upon  the  true  principles  of 
government  required  for  the  public  safety.  At  an  adjourned 
meeting  of  the  convention  in  the  following  month  this  com- 
mittee reported  an  exhaustive  treatise  on  the  whole  subject, 
which  became  known  as  "the  Essex  Eesult."  This  argument, 
understood  to  be  the  production  of  Theophilus  Parsons,  after- 
wards the  eminent  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Judicial 
Court,  was  marked  by  the  intense  grasp  and  comprehensive 
generalization,  by  the  power  of  statement  and  of  clearly 
drawn  distinctions,  which  in  later  years  distinguished  his 
published  opinions,  and  it  must  have  contributed  essentially 
to  the  defeat  of  the  proposed  constitution.  And  the  people 
of  the  State  were  still  without  an  established  government. 

Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams  has  advanced  the  opinion 
"  that  interests  had  already  grown  up,  in  the  period  of  inter- 
regnum, adverse  to  the  establishment  of  any  more  permanent 
government;"  and  he  finds  color  for  this  suggestion  in  the 
fact  that  when  the  Legislature  in  the  next  year,  1779,  took 
steps  for  another  trial  for  a  new  government,  it  put  to  the 
people  the  composite  question,  first,  whether  it  was  their  will 
to  have  a  new  form  of  government,  and  second,  wliether  tliey 
would  authorize  their  representatives  to  call  a  convention  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  framing  one.  Nor  is  this  suggestion 
by  any  means  without  extraneous  support.  Massachusetts 
was  moving  on  its  daily  life  under  the  momentum  of  tradi- 


308  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

tional  observance  of  law  and  order  which  liad  grown  up 
under  the  charters,  which  had  now  been  modified  in  practice 
to  a  degree  that  answered  the  needs  of  all  functional  routine 
through  four  years  of  experience  ;  and  the  conservative  force 
of  popular  inertia,  even  amid  public  crises,  is  attested  by  the 
fact  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  citizeiLS  made  uo 
return  of  any  action  whatever  ui>on  the  preliminary  questions 
in  both  attempts  for  a  constitution.  Ehode  Island  lived  on 
under  its  charter  sixty  years  after  the  resolution  of  the  Con- 
tinental Congress  had  suppressed  it,  and  it  remained  a  mooted 
question  in  Connecticut  until  the  year  1818  whether  its  peo- 
ple had  any  constitution  or  not.  But  the  return  of  the  votes 
upon  the  question  referred  to  them  showed  that  a  majority 
of  our  people  favored  the  call  of  a  convention,  and  on  the 
17th  day  of  June,  1779,  precepts  were  sent  out  for  the  elec- 
tion of  delegates,  who  should  assemble  in  the  following  Sep- 
tember. Accidentally  tlie  conjuncture  of  dates  links  the 
beginning  and  the  end  of  this  higli  enterprise  with  a  day 
forever  set  apart  in  the  Western  world  by  the  opening  battle 
of  the  Ilevolution.  On  the  17th  day  of  June,  1774,  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  State  took  at  Salem  the  first  step  for  self- 
government  ;  on  the  same  day  in  the  next  year  every  retreat 
was  cut  off  by  bloodshed  at  Charlestown ;  and  on  the  same 
day  five  years  later  their  successors  ordered  the  completion 
of  the  work.  As  the  constitution  now  to  be  created  did  not 
go  into  effect  until  October,  1780,  it  appears  that  from  the 
eventful  day  at  Salem  more  than  six  years  were  to  elapse 
before  the  Commonwealth  should  come  into  possession  of  a 
genuine  government.  It  is  a  tribute  which  history  will  ever 
pay  to  the  heroic  energies  of  that  generation  of  men,  to  their 
capacity  for  government,  to  their  innate  reverence  for  law 
and  authority,  to  their  strong  and  enduring  sense  of  national- 
ity, to  their  love  of  liberty  moderated  by  tlieir  love  of  justice, 
that  they  carried  on  a  free  republic  through  all  tliat  period 
by  their  unaided  self-denial  and  self-control ;  that,  rather  than 
act   hastily   in  a  matter  so  grave  to  themselves  and  their 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE    MASSACHUSETTS    CONSTITUTION.     309 

posterity,  they  endured  for  six  years  the  uncertainties  and 
inconsistencies  of  an  illusive  and  baseless  fabric  of  govern- 
ment ;  that  they  deemed  the  benefits  of  a  perfect  constitution 
within  their  own  borders  might  come  only  too  soon,  if  attained 
by  abating  one  jot  or  tittle  of  devotion  and  sacrifice  to  the 
common  cause  of  all  the  States. 

The  convention  wdiich  framed  the  Constitution  under 
which  we  now  live  assembled  in  the  meeting-house  in  Cam- 
bridge, September  1,  1779,  and  after  seven  days  took  a 
recess  till  October  28,  having  first  committed  the  task  of 
preparation  to  a  committee  of  thirty  ;  it  re-assembled  on  the 
28th  of  October,  and  on  the  11th  of  November  took  a  further 
recess  tiU  January  5,  1780.  On  that  day  it  met  in  the  Old 
State  House  in  Boston,  but  by  reason  of  the  bad  travelling 
over  the  State  continued  without  an  efficient  quorum  till  the 
27th  ;  on  which  day  the  labor  was  resumed  and  went  on 
■without  further  interruption  until  it  was  completed  on  the 
2d  day  of  March.  Of  this  body,  which  comprised,  as  I 
make  out  from  the  journal,  three  hundred  and  twelve  dele- 
gates, James  Bowdoin  was  elected  president.  Of  the  exalted 
character  of  this  assembly  no  one  can  hesitate  to  concur  in 
the  opinion  expressed  by  Mr.  Eobert  C.  "Winthrop  in  his 
admirable  address  on  the  services  of  Governor  Bowdoin,  that 
it  contained  "  as  great  a  number  of  men  of  learning,  talents, 
and  patriotism  as  had  ever  been  convened  here  at  any  earlier 
period ; "  and  I  venture  to  add  that  it  has  not  since  been 
equalled  by  any  public  body  in  the  State,  unless  possibly  by 
the  next  convention,  which  met  in  1820.  John  Adams,  Sam- 
uel Adams,  Hancock,  Lowell,  Parsons,  Cabot,  Gorham,  Sulli- 
van, Lincoln,  Paine,  Cushing,  Strong,  are  but  a  few  of  the 
eminent  names  which  appear  on  its  roll.  The  journal  of  its 
proceedings  is  exceedingly  unmethodical  and  unsatisfactory, 
and  by  reason  of  the  lack  of  reporters  at  that  time  we  have 
scarcely  any  knowledge  of  the  debates.  The  committee  of 
thirty,  to  whom  w^as  referred  the  work  of  preparing  a  plan 
and  form   of   government,    intrusted    this    task    to    a   sub- 


310  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

committee  consisting  of  Bowdoin  and  the  two  Adamses,  who 
in  turn  committed  the  responsible  labor  to  John  Adams  alone. 
His  draught  of  the  framework  was  substantially  as  a  whole 
adopted  by  the  sub-committee,  and  afterwards  by  the  general 
committee,  slightly  altered,  was  propounded  to  tlie  convention. 
The  draught  of  Mr.  Adams,  compared  with  the  form  in 
which  the  Constitution  was  finally  adopted,  appears  to  have 
received  several  amendments  by  the  convention ;  but  the 
result  of  their  labors  was  chiefly  as  he  had  blocked  it  out,  and 
by  every  rightful  title  he  must  be  declared  the  father  of  our 
Constitution.  Judge  Lowell  said,  in  his  eulogy  on  Bowdoin, 
that  "  it  was  owing  to  the  hints  which  he  occasionally  gave, 
and  the  part  which  he  took  with  the  committee,  that  some 
of  the  most  admired  sections  in  the  Constitution  appeared  ;  " 
but  in  comparing  John  Adams's  draught  with  the  ultimate 
result  one  cannot  easily  discover  any  sufficient  supply  from 
other  sources  to  derogate  from  his  title  of  chief  authorsliip. 
And  we  owe  it  to  the  truth  of  history  to  say,  that  whilst 
the  galaxy  of  names  already  mentioned  warrants  the  belief 
that  the  absence  of  any  one  of  these  delegates  could  not 
have  endangered  the  prospect  of  a  model  constitutional  gov- 
ernment in  Massachusetts,  the  chieftainship  in  that  creative 
work  must  always  be  assigned  to  John  Adams. 

And  if  he  had  left  no  other  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  the 
Commonwealth,  this  alone  would  complete  his  title.  As 
constitutionalist  and  publicist  all  other  men  of  his  day  came 
at  lon^r  interval  behind  him.  ]\Iadison  and  Hamilton  were 
a  development  of  the  ten  years  which  followed  the  full 
manifestation  of  his  powers.  Beyond  all  his  associates  in 
mastery  of  the  whole  subject  of  government,  grasping  and 
applying  the  lessons  of  historical  studies  with  a  prehensile 
power  at  that  time  unprecedented  on  this  continent,  and 
adding  to  them  the  original  conceptions  of  a  mind  of  the 
highest  order,  he  proved -^of  all  his  contemporaries  fittest  for 
constitutional  architecture.  Having  discerned  five  years  be- 
fore, in  advance  of  everybody,  the  solution  of  independence 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     311 

in  directing  the  colonies  to  establish  local  governments, 
he  became  doctrinaire  to  the  delegates  at  Philadelphia. 
In  the  confusion  and  chaos  of  thought  relating  to  these 
subjects  which  brooded  over  their  minds,  his  counsel  was 
sought  by  delegates  from  North  Carolina,  from  Virginia, 
from  New  Jersey,  to  each  of  whose  delegations  he  furnished 
formulas  of  State  government ;  and  when  he  came  to  the 
front  in  the  preparation  of  a  constitution  for  his  own  State, 
his  mind  was  already  stored  for  the  emergency.  His  share 
in  framing  our  own  government,  and  his  subsequent  writings 
in  defence  of  the  general  system  adopted  by  the  American 
States,  in  refutation  of  the  theories  of  M.  Turgot,  this  defence 
being  published  just  in  time  to  bear  upon  the  question 
of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
furnish  sufficient  excuse,  if  indeed  excuse  were  needed,  for  his 
boastful  declaration,  found  in  the  Warren  correspondence 
recently  published  by  the  Historical  Society :  "  I  made  a 
constitution  for  Massachusetts,  which  finally  made  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States." 

Under  his  direction  the  convention  made  a  Declaration  of 
Eights  to  precede  the  framework,  almost  wholly  the  work 
of  his  hand  with  the  exception  of  the  third  article,  which  he 
did  not  attempt  to  perfect.  These  are  the  axioms  which 
are  to  give  direction  in  future  interpretations.  Of  the 
eleven  original  States  which  made  new  constitutions,  —  for 
Ehode  Island  and  Connecticut  continued  under  their  char- 
ters, the  former  until  1842,  and  the  latter  until  1818, — 
six  adopted  these  Bills  of  Eights,  and  five  left  them  out. 
That  these  declarations  of  general  rights  and  liberties,  most 
carefully  and  solemnly  stated,  and  called  Bills  of  Eights,  are 
not  to  be  regarded  as  exclusively  suggestive  of  that  period 
of  transition  from  the  old  dispensation  to  the  new^,  is  shovv'n 
by  the  fact  that  of  the  twenty-five  new  States  admitted  since 
the  Eevolution  twenty-three  have  adopted  these  formularies ; 
and  of  the  whole  present  number  of  thirty-eight  States  there 
are  still  but  five  which  have  not  accompanied  tlieir  constitu- 


312  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK.  , 

tions  with  something  like  a  Bill  of  Plights.  Upon  this  sub- 
ject the  people  of  Massachusetts  were  peculiarly  sensitive, 
and  the  want  of  a  Bill  of  Rights  is  believed  to  have  had  a 
leading  influence  in  causing  the  rejection  of  the  first  pro- 
posed constitution.  Our  ancestors  deemed  it  of  first  impor- 
tance to  make,  with  every  solemnity,  declaration  of  certain 
fixed  principles  of  reason  adapted  to  the  sphere  of  govern- 
ment, certain  abstract  theories  of  natural  or  civil  rights 
of  man  umler  the  social  compact,  as  safeguards  necessary 
to  immutable  liberty.  Other  sections  of  the  written  instru- 
ment, other  provisions  of  law,  are  the  outworks ;  these  are 
the  citadel.  Secret  approaches  by  violence,  or  corruption, 
or  other  degeneracy,  may  span  the  moat  and  scale  the  outer 
walls  of  government,  but  the  life  of  constitutional  Liberty 
is  HERE,  and  will  "  not  but  by  annihilating  die."  The  conclu- 
sion of  disputed  principles,  derived  out  of  the  usurpations 
and  resistances  of  past  centuries,  is  here  registered  in  a 
single  paragraph.  It  is  but  a  small  body  of  words,  mere 
"  glittering  generalities,"  but  every  word  glitters  as  a  flaming 
sword  of  warning  and  of  ward  to  the  generations.  Good 
words  are  great  things  with  a  free  people.  Seven  words, 
according  to  Parsons  and  Shaw  and  Gray,  abolished  .slavery 
in  Massachusetts.  "These  three  words,"  said  Chatham  to 
the  Lords,  "  nullus  liber  homo,  are  worth  all  the  classics."  The 
journal  of  the  Convention  of  1780,  barren  as  it  is  of  any- 
thing dramatic,  shows  that  the  masters  of  the  period  resolved 
to  follow  after  the  Commons  of  1G88,  who  gave  the  word  of 
halt  to  the  Lords  in  settling  the  crown  upon  a  new  dynasty 
until  a  bill  of  fundamental  liberties  had  first  been  assented 
to.  And  the  earliest  motion  of  business  in  our  own  conven- 
tion related  to  the  Declaration. 

In  all  these  formulas  of  rights  adopted  by  the  several 
States,  there  is  a  general  resemblance  of  substance  and 
phraseology,  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  first  in 
time  was  literally  progenitor  of  the  common  affinity  of 
thought  which  pervaded  them  all.     Undoubtedly    the    Bill 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION,     313 

of  Eights  of  Virginia,  which  was  the  first  promulgated,  was  in 
several  particulars  largely  copied  into  the  others,  and  by  its 
priority  in  time,  as  well  as  by  its  excellence  for  a  model,  it 
has  laid  three  generations  under  tribute  of  admiration.  It 
was  almost  solely  the  production  of  George  Mason,  one 
of  the  sainted  heroes  in  the  history  of  American  constitu- 
tional government.  Four  times  since  that  day  A^irginia 
has  adopted  new  constitutions,  but,  excepting  the  addition 
of  two  or  three  articles  made  necessary  in  1870  as  results  of 
the  Civil  War,  the  original  work  of  Mason  has  stood  and 
now  stands,  after  the  lapse  of  one  hundred  and  five  years, 
as  it  came  from  his  hands.  The  Massachusetts  Declaration 
is  more  extended  and  enunciates  more  in  detail  the  inves- 
titure of  the  liberties  of  the  citizen-subject ;  and  though  I 
must  unavoidably  be  suspected  of  bias,  I  am  free  to  express 
the  opinion  that,  as  a  whole,  it  is  superior  to  every  other 
similar  form  in  existence,  for  its  comprehensive  projecting 
of  the  eclectic  lessons  of  history  over  the  future  of  a  new 
commonwealth,  for  its  repeated  inculcation  of  tlie  duties 
of  religion  and  education  as  the  primary  agencies  of  civilized 
states,  and  for  its  own  simple  and  solid  literature.  "With 
the  exception  of  the  third  article  it  is  the  work  of  ]\Ir. 
Adams,  though  in  the  convention  it  took  on  considerable 
changes  in  the  grouping  and  the  phraseology.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  among  the  English  landmarks  of  right,  in 
Magna  Charta,  in  the  Petition  of  Right,  in  the  Habeas 
Corpus,  in  the  Bill  of  Eights  of  1688,  any  public  or  private 
security  which,  though  here  modified  to  fit  the  modern 
situation,  is  not  as  well  stated  in  this  all-comprising  Declara- 
tion. In  the  annals  of  English  letrislation  we  often  come 
upon  the  historian's  phrase  —  "  encroachment  upon  consti- 
tutional principles  "  —  whilst  to  learn  what  the  principle  is 
that  was  encroached  upon,  one  must  be  well  read  in  five 
centuries  of  kings  and  parliaments,  and  accept  perhaps  at 
last  an  interpretation  from  varying  schools ;  but  in  the 
simple  and  elemental  aphorisms  of  the  Massachusetts  Bill  of 


314  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

Eights  there  is  for  many  of  the  questions  of  constitutional 
encroachment  the  assurance  of  speedy  and  indisputable 
solution.  In  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  articles,  protecting 
personal  liberty  and  property,  which  Mr.  Hallam  sums  up 
as  covering  the  two  main  rights  of  civil  society,  we  have 
repeated  the  thirty-ninth  and  fortieth  articles  of  the  funda- 
mentals of  Maona  Charta  with  more  circumstantial  defini- 
tion,  but  not  without  some  loss  of  the  Gothic  strength  and 
grandeur  of  those  ever-memorable  sections.  The  thirtieth 
and  concluding  article,  defining  the  separation  and  protec- 
tion of  each  one  of  the  three  departments  of  government 
from  the  other  two,  which  was  reduced  to  its  present  form 
by  changing  Mr.  Adams's  grouping,  has  not  its  superior  in 
the  terminology  of  modern  constitutions ;  and  its  success  in 
expressing  the  leading  thought  he  aimed  to  impress  upon 
our  Constitution  is  one  of  the  choice  felicities  of  the  whole 
body  of  the  Declaration.  Mr.  Eufus  Choate,  speaking  of  this 
clause,  once  said  :  "  I  never  read  without  a  thrill  of  sublime 
emotion  the  concluding  words  of  the  Bill  of  Eights, —  'to 
the  end  this  may  be  a  government  of  laws,  and  not  of  men.'  " 
With  the  change  of  only  a  single  article  the  entire  thirty 
sections  have  stood  the  test  of  a  hundred  years,  and  they 
still  challenge  the  same  tender  observance  and  care  from  the 
present  generation,  which  Lord  Coke  claimed  for  the  best 
chapter  of  Magna  Charta  :  "  As  the  gold  refiner  will  not  out 
of  the  dust,  shreds,  or  shreds  of  gold,  let  pass  the  least  crumb, 
in  respect  of  the  excellency  of  the  metal,  so  ought  not  the 
reader  to  pass  any  syllable  of  this  law,  in  respect  of  the 
excellency  of  the  matter." 

There  are  some  half-dozen  of  these  articles,  promulgating 
the  supreme  and  fundamental  principles  which  form  the 
ground  worlv  of  free  government,  which  are  substantially 
copies  from  the  Declarations  of  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania. 
But  since  Pennsylvania  "copied  after  Virginia,  to  the  last- 
mentioned  must  be  accorded  the  historical  honors.  John 
Adams  was  perfectly  familiar  with  every  circumstance  and 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS    CONSTITUTION.     315 

detail  of  the  history  of  the  proceedings  iu  both  of  those 
States.  He  himself  said  that  the  Bill  of  Rights  of  Pennsyl- 
vania was  taken  almost  verbatim  from  tliat  of  Virginia,  wliicli 
was  made  and  published  several  weeks  before;  and  in  con- 
versation with  M.  Marbois  in  June,  1779,  just  before  he  came 
home  to  find  himself  elected  a  delegate  to  our  convention,  he 
gave  the  names  of  the  four  men  who  framed  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Declaration.  Much  has  been  said  and  written  in  our 
local  historical  circles  about  the  authorship  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts famous  first  article,  "All  men  are  born  free  and 
equal,"  etc. ;  but  it  would  seem  the  product  of  all  these 
inquiries  and  speculations  must  lie  at  last  in  the  simple  con- 
clusion, that  this  section  has  come  to  us  iu  the  sole  personal 
draught  of  Mr.  Adams,  and  that  he  in  turn  had  befoi'e  him 
the  same  in  the  original  as  it  came  from  Virginia.  Tliis  is 
one  of  the  conclusions  established  by  Mr.  Charles  Deane  in  a 
recent  paper  published  by  the  Historical.  Society.  The  record 
ought  to  be  conclusive.  But  it  would  be  quite  unphilosoph- 
ical  to  suppose  that  the  primordial  conception  of  the  idea  of 
the  congenital  freedom  and  equality  of  men  belongs  exclu- 
sively to  any  one  of  these  forefathers.  Xot  to  George  Mason, 
nor  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  nor  to  John  Adams,  do  we  owe  an 
inheritance  of  this  thought.  It  was  in  the  air  of  that  day. 
It  is  said  there  are  climates  of  opinion ;  and  I  may  add  there 
are  epidemics  of  phrase.  Prom  time  far  back  there  have 
been  periods  of  the  public  consciousness  of  the  rights  of  man, 
and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  time  when  human  nature 
has  not  been  conscious  of  its  rights ;  and  these  rights  have 
found  expression  in  one  epoch  only  to  be  paraphrased  after 
long  interval  in  a  following  epoch.  The  central  thought  of 
the  twelfth  article  of  the  Massachusetts  Bill  of  Eights,  ex- 
pressed by  Mr.  Adams  in  1779,  may  be  seen  as  well  expressed 
by  Nathaniel  Ward  in  the  first  article  of  the  Body  of  Liberties 
in  1641,  and  it  was  set  forth  with  a  strength  superior  to  both 
in  the  thirty-ninth  article  of  Magna  Charta  of  1215.  These 
are  not  inherited  rights ;  they  come  to  us  from  our  Creator. 


316  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

As  to  concrete  form  they  may  be  traced  to  an  origin  anions 
the  customs  of  the  English  people  and  the  English  barons, 
and  as  for  their  phraseology  in  expression  it  is  a  matter 
rather  of  curiosity  than  of  utility  whether  we  take  rest 
from  our  inquiries  in  Locke  or  Sidney,  in  Filmer  or  Bellar- 
mine. 

There  is  a  curious  coincidence  in  the  conduct  of  George 
Mason  and  John  Adams  of  their  respective  Bills  of  Eights 
relating  to  the  subject  of  religion,  and  in  tlie  public  results 
which  flowed  from  that  conduct.  Mr.  ]\Iason  reported,  in  his 
sixteenth  article,  toleration  for  all  forms  of  reliuion,  when 
Episcopacy  was,  so  to  speak,  the  state  religion  of  Virginia. 
The  youthful  James  Madison,  then  making  the  fir.st  step  in  a 
brilliant  and  beneficent  career,  contested  the  lano-uaue,  and 
obtained  an  amendment  predicated  on  the  natural  right  of  all 
men  to  the  free  exercise  of  religion,  excludiu<:f  the  idea  of 
toleration.  This  action  resulted  in  the  speedy  legislation 
which  put  an  end  to  the  advantage  of  any  one  sect  of  Chris- 
tians over  another,  and  left  the  whole  domain  of  reliiiious 
thought  in  Virginia  without  a  trace  of  compulsion  or  re- 
straint. Mr.  Adams  assented  to  a  compulsory  support  of 
religious  worship,  reported  in  the  third  article  of  our  Declara- 
tion, when  Congregationalism  was,  so  to  speak,  the  state 
religion  of  Massachusetts,  though  he  disclaimed  personal 
responsibility  for  the  article;  and  this  article,  subsequently 
made  even  more  narrow  and  stringent  by  the  convention, 
enforced  a  religious  compulsion  upon  the  people  of  Massa- 
chusetts which  it  took  half  a  century  afterwards  to  repeal. 

Following  the  Declaration  of  Eights  came  the  plan  or 
frame  of  government.  On  this  field  Mr.  Adams  had  the 
opportunity  to  apply,  in  clear  and  enduring  formulary,  his 
matured  conceptions  of  a  government  fit  for  a  free  republic, 
which  he  summarized  in  the  provision  for  three  organs  of 
governing  power,  a  legislature,  an  executive,  and  a  judiciary. 
Five  years  earlier,  in  his  conferences  with  public  men  at 
Philadelphia,  he  had  met  with  a  quite  common  preference  for 


CENTENNIAL   OF  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     317 

one  sole  legislative  assembly,  which  should  absorb  all  func- 
tions of  government,  itself  legislating  and  itself  also  selecting 
the  executive  and  judicial  agencies.  This  principle  was 
adopted  by  Pennsylvania  in  its  constitution  of  1776,  which 
remained  in  force  till  1790,  after  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  had  been  ratified ;  and  a  similar  form  of  gov- 
ernment was  created  by  Georgia  in  1777  and  continued  until 
1789.  Though  no  other  of  the  thirteen  States  accepted  this 
theory,  it  has  been  made  evident  that  in  1775  and  1776  it 
had  a  strong  support  in  high  quarters.  Dr.  Franklin  favored 
it,  and  according  to  the  authority  of  Mr.  Adams,  his  colleagues, 
Gushing,  Paine,  and  Samuel  Adams,  favored  it,  though  no 
evidence  appears  that  they  adhered  to  such  opinion  when 
called  to  act  in  the  Convention  of  1780.  He  distinctly  states 
that  when  the  subject  of  recommending  the  setting  up  of 
state  governments  was  before  Congress  in  1775,  it  seemed  to 
him  most  natural  for  that  body  to  agree  upon  a  form  of  state 
government  and  send  it  out  to  all  the  States  for  their  adoption ; 
but,  he  says,  "  I  dared  not  make  such  a  motion  because  I 
knew  that  every  one  of  my  friends,  and  all  of  those  who  were 
most  zealous  for  assuming  governments,  had  at  that  time  no 
idea  of  any  other  government  but  a  contemptible  legislature 
in  one  assembly,  with  conmiittees  for  executive  magistrates 
and  judges."  This  was  very  properly  termed  an  unbalanced 
government,  and  such  a  theory,  whether  fresh  from  France  or 
acclimated  here,  he  opposed  with  great  vigor  in  his  reply  to 
the  disquisitions  of  M.  Turgot.  He  would  set  up  the  three 
bulwarks  of  the  English  Constitution,  king,  lords,  and  com- 
mons, modified  in  the  form  of  governor,  assembly,  and  senate, 
adding  an  isolated  and  absolutely  independent  judiciary, 
without  the  British  imperfection  which  then  made  the  upper 
house  a  depositary  of  judicial  appeal.  As  far  back  as  Janu- 
ary, 1776,  five  months  before  the  action  of  Virginia,  six 
months  before  the  action  of  Pennsylvania,  and  before  any  one 
of  the  colonies  had  taken  up  the  subject  for  deliberation, 
when  invited  by  the  colonial  legislature  of  North  Carolina  to 


318  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.   BULLOCK. 

give  them  his  views  on  government,  he  unfolded  his  system 
in  a  letter  to  John  Penn  in  language  which  he  afterwards 
repeated  in  framing  the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts ;  the 
same  separation  of  the  executive  from  the  legislature,  the 
same  balance  of  dual  legislative  houses,  the  same  great  bar- 
riers thrown  up  around  the  judiciary.  Tlie  legal  literature  of 
this  country  does  not  furnish  a  more  impressive  statement  of 
the  necessity  of  an  elevated  judicial  organ  in  the  government, 
of  the  method  for  obtaining  it,  and  of  the  guards  which 
should  surround  and  protect  it,  than  the  following  passage 
which  I  quote  at  length  from  this  letter  as  a  motto  for  the 
people  of  the  State  in  all  time  to  come :  — 

"  The  stabiUty  of  government,  in  all  its  branches,  the  morals  of 
the  people,  and  every  other  blessing  of  society  and  social  institu- 
tions, depend  so  much  upon  an  able  and  impartial  administration 
of  justice,  that  the  judicial  power  should  be  separated  from  the 
legislative  and  executive,  and  independent  upon  both ;  the  judges 
should  be  men  of  experience  in  the  laws,  of  exemplary  morals, 
invincible  patience,  unruffled  calmness,  and  indefatigable  applica- 
tion; their  minds  should  not  be  distracted  with  complicated,  jar- 
ring interests';  they  should  not  be  dependent  on  any  man  or  body 
of  men ;  they  sliould  lean  to  none,  be  subservient  to  none,  nor 
more  complaisant  to  one  than  another.  To  this  end,  they  should 
hold  estates  for  life  in  their  offices ;  or,  in  other  words,  their  com- 
missions should  be  during  good  behavior,  and  their  salaries  ascer- 
tained and  established  by  law." 

It  is  not  singular  that  jSTorth  Carolina,  to  which  State 
these  sentiments  were  addressed,  in  its  first  constitution,  in 
1776,  ordered  the  appointment  of  its  higher  judges  to  be 
made  during  good  behavior,  and  that  this  provision  con- 
tinued undisturbed  through  ninety-two  years,  down  to  the 
Convention  of  18G8,  which  convened  under  a  call  issued  by 
a  major-general  of  the  army  of  the  United  States.  It  is 
not  singular  that  these  sentiments  were  accepted  in  a  similar 
provision  of  the  first  constitutions  of  nine  of  the  eleven 
States   which   framed   new   governments,   though    many   of 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     319 

them  have  since  taken  a  wide  departure  from  the  principle. 
And  least  of  all  is  it  singular  that  the  same  sentiments  were 
re<nstered  in  the  orcranic  law  of  our  own  Commonwealth, 
which  has  enjoyed  the  fruitage  of  them  through  a  whole 
century.  The  philosophy  of  the  master  was  first  directed 
to  this  subject  when  the  British  Parliament  provided  that 
the  salaries  of  the  colonial  judges  of  Massachusetts  might 
be  paid  by  the  king,  and  he  then  aroused  the  attention  of 
the  colony  to  scent  the  first  approach  of  encroachment  upon 
the  independence  of  the  judiciary. 

The  framework  of  the  Constitution  as  it  came  from  the 
hands  of  the  committee  of  thirty  underwent  but  few  changes 
in  the  substance.  Mr.  Adams  advocated  investing  the  ex- 
ecutive with  the  power  of  an  absolute  and  unalterable  nega- 
tive upon  the  laws,  which  was  changed  to  a  qualified  veto  by 
the  convention.  Of  the  eleven  State  constitutions  originally 
adopted,  Massachusetts  alone  accepted  this  doctrine  in  its 
modern  form ;  New  York  lodging  the  power  in  a  joiut  coun- 
cil of  the  Governor,  Chancellor,  and  two  Supreme  Judges, 
South  Carolina  sanctioning  it  for  but  two  years,  while  all  the 
other  States  refused  admittance  to  the  principle.  Mr.  Adams, 
having  been  called  away  from  the  convention  upon  his  mis- 
sion abroad,  was  not  in  attendance  when  his  form  of  absolute 
executive  power  of  veto  was  changed  to  the  qualified  form,  but 
he  wrote  from  Amsterdam  on  the  2d  of  October,  1780,  that 
the  Massachusetts  Constitution,  then  publishing  in  the  public 
papers  of  Europe,  was  received  with  general  favor,  and  that 
this  particular  provision  met  with  European  approval  and 
received  also  his  own  assent.  The  same  measure  of  the  veto 
power  was  afterwards  incorporated  into  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  and  though  its  exercise  in  periods  of  party 
excitement  has  been  frequently  assailed,  and  the  principle 
itself  has  been  threatened  with  repeal,  it  has  made  its  way 
into  most  of  the  State  governments  and  may  now  be  re- 
garded as  a  part  of  the  American  system.  Whilst  tliis  State 
was  almost  alone  in  its  original  adoption,  the  example  has 


320  ADDHESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

been  followed  by  other  States,  until  now  only  three  of  the 
old  thirteen  are  without  it,  and  of  the  whole  number  of 
States  thirty  have  incorporated  it  in  their  governments, 
leaving  but  eight  that  disown  it.  For  illustrating  the  desire 
of  our  ancestors  for  a  government  clothing  the  governor 
with  full  and  independent  powers,  I  may  mention  that  in 
many  of  the  towns  the  people  voted  against  accepting  those 
sections  which  seemed  to  them  deficient  in  the  strong  execu- 
tive prerogatives  necessary  for  the  time.  The  appointment 
of  militia  officers,  lodged  by  the  committee's  report  in  the  ex- 
ecutive, was  by  the  convention  changed  to  election  by  tlie  com- 
panies or  otherwise,  and  though  deemed  an  important  change 
by  the  author  this  has  caused  no  trouble  in  practical  opera- 
tion. The  material  alterations  from  the  committee's  report 
were  so  few  and  inconsiderable  that  I  will  not  follow  out  the 
topic. 

In  filling  up  the  outline  of  the  framework  to  attain  the 
comprehensive  purpose  of  three  grand,  distinctive,  and  co- 
ordinate organs  of  governing  sovereignty,  balancing  and 
checking  each  other,  yet  protecting  and  serving  each  other, 
the  analogies  of  the  English  system  and  the  colonial  cus- 
toms and  laws  of  a  century  and  a  half  were  retained  and 
modified  by  the  access  of  new  ideas.  The  king,  the  Lords 
and  Commons,  became  our  Governor,  Senate,  and  House  of 
Representatives,  modified  by  our  situation,  l)ut  not  essen- 
tially changed  in  elementary  principles.  Great  Britain  has 
been  termed  a  republic  with  a  permanent  executive,  of  which 
last  feature  our  system  was  left  clear  by  universal  consent. 
The  British  judicial  life-tenure  and  the  removal  of  judges 
by  address  were  retained  as  they  had  come  from  William 
and  Mary.  The  confusion  of  legislative,  executive,  and 
judicial  functions  involved  in  the  Lord  Chancellor  being  a 
politician  of  the  Cabinet,  and  in  the  Lords  being  a  court  of 
appeal,  were  wisely  rejected  from  our  system ;  the  Gov- 
ernor's Council  bore  analogy  to  the  Privy  Council  of  Eng- 
land, but  was  freed  at  once  from  the  incompatibilities  which 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS    CONSTITUTION.     321 

had  grown  up  under  the  charter  by  which  executive  and 
legishitive  jDrerogatives  were  illogically  mingled;  the  ex- 
pression of  all  legislative  power  under  the  term  of  "  the 
General  Court "  was  old  as  Winthrop's  administration  under 
the  charter ;  tlie  choice  of  a  House  of  Eepresentatives  was 
prescriptive  from  the  earliest  days  of  the  colony  in  1632, 
when  the  levy  of  taxes  by  the  magistrates  led  to  resistance ; 
the  Senate  came  from  the  ancient  Assistants,  bein<^  now 
stripped  of  executive  and  judicial  authority ;  the  check  of 
the  two  houses  upon  each  other  dates  backward  to  the  civil 
strife  which  arose  from  the  impounding  of  the  colonial  stray ; 
the  right  of  town  representation  in  the  Assembly  had  its 
origin  in  that  early  time  when  but  eight  towns  lay  about 
Boston,  as  a  crescent  filling  with  the  destiny  of  the  future 
Commonwealth ;  the  two  sessions  of  the  General  Court  were 
descended  from  the  year  1G36;  the  requirement  of  local 
residence  of  the  Representative  came  of  the  conduct  of  some 
recusant  Bostonians  who,  in  Phipps's  government  in  1694, 
held  seats  for  country  towns,  after  the  manner  of  the  British 
Parliament,  to  be  rid  of  whom  the  Governor's  party  passed 
the  Resident  Act,  now  become  the  general  practice  of  Amer- 
ica ;  the  restriction  of  suffrage  was  an  English  and  colonial 
inheritance ;  compulsory  taxation  for  compulsory  religious 
worshij)  lingered  longest  and  last  of  the  relics  of  the  Puritan 
period,  in  which  the  idea  of  a  perfect  church  and  the  idea 
of  a  perfect  commonwealth  were  inseparable.  I  will  not 
pursue  the  thought  of  the  sources  of  derivative  supply  to  the 
Constitution,  since  I  shall  have  to  touch  upon  some  of  them 
in  speaking  of  the  changes  which  the  century  has  made  in 
this  venerable  instrument;  but  one  subject,  to  which  was 
assigned  pre-eminent  importance,  cannot  be  passed  over  by 
any  citizen  who  seeks  to  find  in  government  one  of  the  chief 
fountains  of  public  virtue  and  stability. 

The  second  section  of  chapter  fifth,  relating  to  "  the  en- 
couragement of  literature,"  etc.,  is  a  distinguishing  feature 
of  the  Massachusetts    Constitution.     Tlie  earlier  provisions 

21 


322  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

in  tlie  governments  of  other  States  for  education  were 
meagre  and  unworthy.  In  most  of  them  there  was  no 
injunction  whatever  relating  to  this  subject,  and  in  the  few 
which  noticed  the  matter  at  all,  with  a  single  exception,  the 
only  inculcation  of  the  kind  was  degraded  by  the  remark- 
able precaution  of  requiring  "instruction  of  youth  at  low 
prices,"  a  phrase  used  in  at  least  three  of  these  constitu- 
tions. The  treatment  given  by  the  following  section  to  this 
duty  of  government  raises  tlie  subject  to  a  plane  of  elevation 
fitly  occupied  by  a  State  which  established  a  university  and 
a  system  of  public  schools  in  the  infancy  of  its  settlement. 
It  has  stood  through  a  century  without  the  change  of  a 
syllable,  and  it  deserves  to  be  cited  at  length  at  this  starting- 
point  of  the  second  century  under  the  Constitution  :  — 

"  Wisdom  and  knowledge,  as  well  as  virtue,  diffused  generally 
among  the  body  of  the  people,  being  necessary  for  the  preservation 
of  their  rights  and  liberties,  and  as  these  depend  on  spreading  the 
opportunities  and  advantages  of  education  in  the  various  parts  of 
the  country,  and  among  the  different  orders  of  the  people,  it  shall 
be  the  duty  of  legislators  and  magistrates,  in  all  future  periods  of 
this  Commonwealth,  to  cherish  the  interests  of  literature  and  the 
sciences,  and  all  seminaries  of  them ;  especially  the  University  at 
Cambridge,  public  schools  and  grammar  schools  in  the  towns ;  to 
encovirage  private  societies  and  public  institutions,  rewards  and 
immunities  for  the  promotion  of  agriculture,  arts,  sciences,  com- 
merce, trades,  manufactvu-es,  and  a  natural  history  of  the  countiy ; 
to  countenance  and  inculcate  the  principles  of  humanity  and  gen- 
eral benevolence,  public  and  private  charity,  industry  and  frugality, 
honesty  and  punctuality  in  their  dealings,  sincerity,  good  humor, 
and  all  social  affections  and  generous  sentiments  among  the 
people." 

The  incorporation  into  the  Constitution  of  this  concise 
and  unique  summary  of  the  higher  obligations  of  govern- 
ment covering  the  whole  domain  of  general  and  special 
education,  of  ethical  and  social  sentiment,  of  all  the  humani- 
ties and  benignities  necessary  to   the  best  attainable  social 


CENTENNIAL   OF  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     323 

condition,  was  many  steps  in  advance  of  every  constitu- 
tional provision  hitherto  known,  and  was  original  and  with- 
out a  precedent.  This  episode  in  constitutional  precepts 
at  once  made  a  deep  impression  upon  the  public  mind.  In 
their  answer  to  the  first  message  of  Governor  Hancock  the 
two  houses  of  the  Legislature  quoted  largely  from  this  now 
celebrated  section,  and  gave  assurance,  for  themselves  and 
their  successors,  of  a  faithful  practice  of  the  precepts.  I 
need  not  say  how  truly  legislation  has  followed  this  organic 
instruction,  in  grants  from  the  public  domain  and  from  the 
treasury  to  colleges,  academies,  and  the  free  schools  through 
three  generations ;  in  developing  the  capacity  of  the  soil ; 
in  building  up  a  system  of  public  charities  and  reformatories 
of  which  the  outlines  for  models  are  visited  from  afar ;  nor 
can  I  fail  in  my  observation  to  trace  back  to  this  source  of 
inspiration  somewhat  of  the  endurance,  patience,  and  en- 
couragement which  has  sustained  a  Howe,  a  Mann,  a  Sears, 
all  our  high  workmen  and  benefactors  in  the  interests  of 
philanthropy  and  education.  Tlie  unfolding  of  that  narra- 
tive would  be  too  large  for  the  present  occasion.  Mr. 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  in  his  fourth  volume  of  the  works 
of  his  ancestor,  has  made  public  the  curious  private  history 
of  this  epitome  of  the  moral  duties  of  government.  The 
author  was  in  Europe  when  this  section  was  voted  on  by 
the  convention,  and  he  felt  apprehensive  lest  the  injunction 
to  cultivate  "  good  humor "  among  the  people  might  be 
struck  out  by  the  delegates.  It  happened  singularly  enough 
that  this  section  was  copied  into  the  Constitution  of  New 
Hampshire,  adopted  in  1784,  and  again  in  its  frame  of  gov- 
ernment of  1792,  where  it  now  stands,  in  each  instance 
with  the  "  good  humor "  left  out.  The  author  was  also 
solicitous  lest  the  "  natural  history "  might  be  rejected  by 
the  convention.  His  own  amusing  account  of  the  orisrin  of 
this  phrase  of  constitutional  duty,  traceable  to  the  interest 
he  took  in  a  certain  collection  of  American  birds  and  insects 
he  visited  at  Norwalk,  Connecticut,  on  his  journeys  to  and 


324  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.   BULLOCK. 

from  tlie  Continental  Congress,  and  afterwards  in  similax 
collections  in  Paris,  rises  to  the  height  of  forecast  and 
prophecy  when  considered  with  the  illustrations  of  our  sub- 
sequent history.  The  collection  at  Norwalk  was  suggestive 
of  results  which  he  probably  then  little  apprehended,  for  in 
carrying  out  this  provision  of  the  Constitution  Massachu- 
setts has  passed  beyond  all  other  American  States  in  devel- 
oping this  department  of  "natural  history."  To  illustrate 
this  I  need  only  mention,  among  the  works  published  under 
authority  of  the  Legislature,  the  reports  on  the  fishes,  rep- 
tiles, and  birds  of  Massachusetts,  the  first  two  written  by 
Dr.  Storer,  and  the  last  by  W.  B.  0.  Peabody ;  the  reports 
on  our  herbaceous  plants  and  quadrupeds,  the  former  by 
Chester  Dewey,  the  latter  by  Ebenezer  Emmons ;  the  report 
on  insects  injurious  to  vegetation,  by  Dr.  Harris ;  the  report 
on  our  iuvertebrata,  by  Gould  and  Biune}'' ;  the  great  work 
of  geological  survey,  by  Hitchcock  ;  a  report  on  the  trees 
and  shrubs  natural  to  our  forests,  by  George  B.  Emerson ; 
the  munificent  endowments  by  the  State  of  the  Society  of 
Natural  History  and  the  Institute  of  Technology ;  and  last, 
but  by  no  means  least,  its  generous  contribution  to  the 
broad  foundation  and  subsequent  support  of  the  Museum  of 
Comparative  Zoology  at  Cambridge,  in  which  the  Common- 
wealth may  be  said  to  have  entered  into  partnership  of  fame 
with  the  illustrious  scientist  whose  name  will  forever  be 
associated  with  the  institution. 

On  the  2d  of  March,  1780,  the  finishing  touches  hav- 
ing been  put  to  the  Constitution,  it  was  finally  adopted 
by  the  convention  and  ordered  to  be  submitted  to  the 
people  for  their  judgment,  and  the  delegates  adjourned  to 
meet  in  the  Brattle  Street  ]\Ieeting-house  on  the  7th  of 
June,  to  ascertain  and  declare  the  result.  Although  the 
instrument  made  the  suffrage  dependent  on  a  property 
qualification  in  the  future  elections  of  State  officers,  yet  it 
had  been  provided  that  in  the  vote  upon  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution  itself  all  free  male  inhabitants,  twenty- 


CENTENNIAL  OF  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     325 

one  years  old,  might  cast  their  ballot.  Upon  re-assembling 
and  counting  the  votes  upon  all  the  propositions  the  dele- 
gates declared  the  entire  Constitution  to  have  been  adopted. 
The  form  of  government  of  Massachusetts  under  which  its 
present  population,  rapidly  nearing  two  million  souls,  enjoy 
a  degree  of  comfort  and  contentment  not  surpassed  by  the 
same  number  elsewliere  on  the  globe,  was  "  ordained  by  the 
people,"  —  using  the  language  of  John  Quincy  Adams, — 
"that  is  to  say,  by  more  than  two  thirds  of  about  fifteen  thou- 
sand persons  wdio  voted  upon  it,  out  of  a  population  of  three 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  or  one  vote  for  every  thirty- 
five  souls."  On  the  25th  day  of  October,  the  first  elected 
chief  magistrate.  Governor  Hancock,  took  the  oath  of  of&ce 
in  the  presence  of  the  two  houses  of  the  Legislature  in 
the  Old  State  House,  proclamation  being  made  from  the 
balcony  by  the  Secretary  and  repeated  by  the  Sheriff  of 
Suffolk;  and  we  are  assured  that  "joy  was  diffused  through 
the  countenances  of  the  citizens,"  that  three  companies 
paraded  State  Street,  that  volleys  were  fired,  and  salvos  of 
cannon  from  the  castle  and  Fort  Hill  and  on  board  the  ship- 
ping in  the  harbor.  At  the  services  which  followed  in  the 
"  Old  Brick  Meeting-house "  Dr.  Cooper  preached  a  sermon 
from  Jeremiah :  "  And  their  congregation  shall  be  estab- 
lished before  me;  and  their  nobles  shall  be  of  themselves; 
and  their  governor  shall  proceed  from  the  midst  of  them." 
After  which  the  executive  and  the  members  of  the  two 
houses  were  escorted  to  Faneuil  Hall,  in  which  a  feast  with 
thirteen  toasts  completed  the  simple  and  frugal  ceremonies 
of  inaugurating  a  new  government  and  a  new  age  for  the 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts. 

During  the  century  which  has  since  elapsed  the  three 
branches  of  the  government  and  the  people  themselves  have 
in  the  main  acted  in  good  faith  towards  their  form  of  govern- 
ment ;  and  the  steadiness  and  intelligence  which  have  marked 
these  mutual  relations  reflect  equal  honor  upon  the  wise  pro- 
visions of  the  Constitution  and  upon  the  character  of  the 


326  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

Commonwealth,  which  has  thus  far  measured  to  it  the  whole 
duration  of  its  civil  life.      There  lias  been  no  appreciable 
abandoning  or  dropping  below  the  criterion  established  by 
the  founders ;  and  now  entering  the  second  century  it  is  per- 
mitted us  to  say  that  the  original  spirit  of  the  Declaration  and 
framework  has  constantly  inspired  the  three  practical  func- 
tions of  its  legislation,  interpretation,  and  execution.     Very 
early  after  this  government  went  into  operation  an  occasion 
arose  to  test  the  fidelity  of  its  administration  to  the  Declara- 
tion of  Eights.     Under  the  supreme  clause  of  the  first  article 
of  the  Bill  of  Rights  slavery  was  abolished  on  the  first  oppor- 
tunity.    There  has  been  at  diflerent  times  much  inquiry  in 
relation  to  the  share  this  first  article  bore  in  the  decision  of 
the  case  in  Worcester  County  which,  in  1783,  put  an  end  to 
slavery  in  this  Commonwealth.     On  the  one  side  it  has  been 
said  that  the  words  "  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal "  were 
one  of  the  phrases  of  the  period,  having  no  more  relation  to 
slavery  in  Massachusetts  than   the  same  language  bore  to 
slavery  in  Virginia,  whose  Bill  of  Eights  first  introduced  it 
there.     And  singularly  it  occurs  that  this  hypothesis  receives 
support  from  a  letter  upon  the  sulyect  of  slavery,  written  by 
John  Adams  himself  to  Dr.  Belknap,  March  21,  1795,  re- 
cently published   in   the  Belknap  Papers  by  the  Historical 
Societ}^   in  which   the   father   of  the  Constitution   says   of 
slavery,  "It  is  a  subject  to  which  I  have  never  given  any 
particular  attention."     There  being  no  judicial  reports  of  the 
time  in  Mdiich  the  Worcester  case  was  decided,  the  question 
has  been  held  to  some  extent  open  as  to  the  direct  and  tactual 
bearing  this  first  article  may  have  had  upon  that  decision. 
Chief  Justice  Parsons,  himself  a  member  of  the  Constitutional 
Convention,  declared,  in  1808,  that  "in  the  first  action  involv- 
ing the  right  of  the  master,  which  came  before  the  Supreme 
Court  after  the  establisliment  of  the  Constitution,  the  judges 
declared  that  by  virtue  of  the  first  article  of  the  Declaration 
of  Eights  slavery  in  this  State  was  no  more."     Chief  Justice 
Shaw,  in  a  subsequent  case,  seemed  to  doubt  how  far  tlie 


CENTENNIAL    OF    THE    MASSACHUSETTS    CONSTITUTION.     327 

adoption  of  the  English  opinion  in  Somerset's  case,  and  the 
first  article  of  our  Declaration,  may  have  respectively  shared 
in  the  decision  referred  to.  But  I  think  great  weight  is  due 
to  the  suggestion  of  the  present  learned  Chief  Justice  Gray, 
contained  in  a  paper  recently  presented  to  the  Historical  So- 
ciety, reminding  us  that  Chief  Justice  Cushing  and  Associate 
Justices  Sargeant,  Sewall,  Sullivan  and  Sumner,  sitting  in  the 
case,  and  Lincoln  and  Strong  of  counsel,  and  Paine  for  the  gov- 
ernment, were  all  members  of  the  Convention  of  1780,  which 
adopted,  and  all  but  three  members  of  the  committee  of  thirty 
which  reported,  this  article.  It  appears  to  me,  therefore,  that 
however  difficult  it  may  be  to  determine  how  far  the  inten- 
tion of  tlie  framers  of  the  article  related  to  this  particular 
question,  the  weight  of  reason  and  authority  is  decisively  in 
favor  of  the  conclusion  that  the  judges  decreed  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  Massachusetts  as  one  of  the  effects  of  the  Bill  of 
Rights.  Judicial  interpretation  of  tlie  constitutional  effect 
of  an  article  must  be  final,  though  the  field  is  never  closed 
to  archaeological  curiosity  as  to  the  intention  of  its  framers. 
And  whilst  the  court  may  have  justly  given  to  tliis  article 
an  interpretation  lying  beyond  the  thought  of  its  framers,  so 
it  is  still  competent  for  the  curious  searcher  to  maintain  with 
Dr.  Belknap  that  it  was  public  opinion  which  abolished 
slavery  in  Massachusetts. 

The  sense  of  constitutional  responsibility  of  administration 
was  soon  brought  under  the  most  severe  ordeal  of  our  history 
in  the  Shays  Rebellion,  which  occurred  in  1786  and  1787. 
Both  the  beginning  and  the  suppression  of  this  memorable 
revolt  may,  in  one  sense,  be  ascribed  to  the  lofty  integrity  of 
the  early  magistrates,  and  their  resolve  to  hold  the  govern- 
ment and  the  people  in  full  accord  with  the  standard  of  the 
framers.  The  discontent  which  ended  in  arms  grew  up  out 
of  the  exhaustion  of  finance  and  hope,  public  and  private, 
and  out  of  the  vast  debt,  State  and  national,  which  were  con- 
sequent upon  the  war ;  and  it  combined  all  those  elements  of 
popular  sympathy  which  spring  from  a  depreciated  currency. 


328  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEX.VNDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

from  widespread  poverty  and  despair.  It  has  seemed  to  me 
quite  likely  that  a  timid,  hesitating  policy  on  tlie  part  of  the 
administration,  a  little  lowering  of  the  constitutional  tone,  a 
little  yielding  and  weakness  and  false  promise,  might  have 
put  off  perhaps  indefinitely  the  shock.  But  the  wise  consti- 
tutionalists of  that  day  saw  that  weakness  in  such  a  crisis 
would  lead  to  fatal  degeneracy.  At  a  time  when  depression 
was  at  its  worst,  in  1785,  Governor  Bowdoin,  who  had  pre- 
sided over  the  Constitutional  Convention  and  borne  a  respon- 
sible share  in  its  great  work,  on  taking  the  chair  of  state 
uttered  no  uncertain  sound,  but  insisted  upon  such  measures 
of  taxation  as  should  maintain  unimpaired  the  public  credit. 
In  his  address  upon  the  life  of  tliis  magistrate  Mr.  Winthrop 
has  not  too  strongly  illustrated  the  service  he  rendered  by 
impressing  on  the  Legislature  and  the  people  the  benefits 
of  keeping  faith  with  the  Constitution  by  practising  the  high- 
est public  morals  in  the  darkest  period.  The  same  spirit 
spread  to  the  other  functionaries  of  administration.  There  is 
no  passage  in  the  annals  of  the  State  more  dramatic  and  sub- 
lime than  those  which  have  recorded  the  firmness  of  the 
judges  in  that  time  of  threatened  anarchy,  in  which  a  Justice, 
who  had  served  with  honor  under  a  high  commission  in  the 
war  of  the  nation,  now  crowned  that  distinction  by  upholding 
the  Constitution  and  laws  in  the  presence  of  armed  insur- 
.  gents.  After  the  interval  of  nearly  a  century  it  behooves  us 
to  recall  with  gratitude  the  conduct  of  these  men  in  giving  to 
the  first  operations  of  the  government  a  character  which  has 
not  been  lost  in  the  lapse  of  years.  Their  determination, 
their  tone  and  temper,  passed  into  the  next  era  ;  and,  though 
they  personally  suffered  from  temporary  disparagement  and 
obloquy,  the  force  of  their  example  survived  to  the  next  gen- 
eration and  even  to  our  own  time.  The  Commonwealth 
which  under  Bowdoin  in  178G-87,  in  behalf  of  a  public  credit 
which  should  be  perpetual,  was  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
borrowing  money  of  citizens  of  Boston  to  enable  it  to  defend 
the   Constitution  against  open  insurrection,  afterwards  still 


CENTENNIAL  OF  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     329 

proved  its  steadfastness  to  that  early  lesson,  when,  seventy- 
seven  years  later,  in  the  midst  of  flagrant  national  war,  it 
paid  its  principal  and  interest  in  gold,  whilst  depreciation 
reigned  in  many  other  quarters  supreme.  The  example  of 
good  faith  to  the  Constitution,  taught  by  the  fathers  of  the 
government,  has  survived  the  century. 

The  Convention  of  1780  provided  that  after  the  expiration 
of  fifteen  years,  in  1795,  it  should  be  submitted  to  the  peo- 
ple to  say  whether  they  desired  to  call  another  convention 
for  revising  the  form  of  government,  and  that  if  two  thirds 
of  those  voting  on  the  question  should  respond  in  the  affirm- 
ative, such  convention  should  be  chosen  and  convened.  Act- 
ing in  conformity  to  this  provision,  the  people  decided  iu 
1795  against  the  proposition,  and  through  a  period  of  forty 
years  from  its  establishment  the  Constitution  remained  with- 
out any  alteration  and  without  any  provision  for  its  future 
revision.  In  1820,  by  reason  of  the  district  of  Maine  hav- 
ing been  set  off  as  an  independent  State,  a  constitutional 
convention  was  duly  ordered  by  the  Legislature  and  the 
people,  and  assembled  at  the  State  House  on  the  15th  of 
November.  This  was  one  of  the  most  celebrated  bodies  of 
men  which  has  ever  assembled  in  this  Commonwealth,  alike 
for  the  standing  of  the  delegates  and  the  ability  and  decorum 
of  the  debates.  The  list  of  its  members  comprised  such 
names  as  John  Adams  and  Daniel  Webster,  Story  and 
Parker,  Shaw  and  Wilde,  Lincoln  and  Hoar,  Jackson  and 
Prescott,  Quincy  and  Blake,  Savage  and  Hubbard,  Salton- 
stall  and  Hale,  and  many  others  then  or  afterwards  eminent 
in  the  State  and  nation.  The  journal  of  this  convention  is 
among  the  tilings  lost,  and  the  Commonwealth  will  ever  be 
indebted  to  Mr.  Nathan  Hale  for  a  complete  record  of  its 
proceedings  and  discussions,  made  up  at  the  time,  comprised 
in  a  volume  of  nearly  seven  hundred  pages  of  inestimable 
value.  Mr.  Adams  was  chosen  president,  but  in  conse- 
quence of  the  infirmities  of  age,  he  being  then  in  his  eighty- 
sixth  year,  he  declined  the  position,  and  Chief  Justice  Parker 


330  ADDIiESSES    OF  ALEXANDER   II.    BULLOCK. 

was  elected  to  the  office.  This  convention  continued  in 
session  until  the  9th  of  January.  In  perusing  the  report 
of  these  remarkable  discussions  one  can  scarcely  fail  to 
observe,  that  if  supremacy  or  superiority  should  be  assigned 
to  any  one  among  so  many  civil  masters,  the  convention 
itself  appears  from  time  to  time  to  have  set  that  distinction 
upon  Mr.  Webster.  He  was  then  thirty-eight  years  old,  and 
then  for  the  first  time  he  came  foremost  to  the  front  in 
Massachusetts.  It  was  during  the  sessions  of  this  body  tliat 
he  pronounced  his  address  at  Plymouth  which  placed  him 
before  all  others  for  a  kind  of  eloquence  which  bears  within 
itself  the  assurance  of  durability.  One  other  convention 
assembled  in  1853  to  consider  amendments  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, of  which  the  proceedings  and  discussions  were  reported 
in  three  immense  volumes ;  but  as  the  result  of  its  delibera- 
tions was  altogether  rejected  by  the  people  it  does  not  come 
properly  under  the  survey  of  this  paj)er.  Any  careful  reader 
of  the  debates  of  these  two  public  bodies  of  1820  and  1853 
will  readily  perceive  that  in  the  former  it  appears  to  have 
been  difficult  to  induce  the  members  to  accept  any  change 
in  the  organic  law,  whilst  in  the  latter  it  appears  to  have 
been  difficult  to  prevent  the  acceptance  of  any  alteration. 
The  one  deliberated  at  a  time  in  which  no  party  strife 
existed,  whilst  the  other  was  itself  in  some  degree  the  out- 
growth of  party  strife,  and  its  deliberations  reflected  strongly 
the  party  politics  of  the  day. 

In  the  last  sixty  years  twenty-seven  amendments  have 
been  incorporated  into  the  Constitution,  many  of  which  may 
be  grouped  together  in  this  paper  for  simplicity  and  brevity 
of  statement.  Several  of  these  require  only  mention  with- 
out comment.  Such  are  the  following,  numbering  them  in 
the  order  of  their  adoption :  First,  a  bill  or  resolve,  if  not 
signed  by  the  Governor  nor  returned  with  his  veto,  is  not 
to  become  a  law  if  the  Legislature  adjourn  within  five  days 
after  the  same  has  been  laid  before  him ;  second,  the  Legis- 
lature is  empowered  to  constitute  city  governments  in  towns 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS    CONSTITUTION.     331 

having  twelve  thousand  inhabitants  ;  fourth,  the  appoint- 
ment of  notaries  public  is  transferred  from  the  Legislature 
to  the  Governor;  fifth,  minors  enrolled  in  the  militia  are 
clothed  with  the  right  to  vote  in  election  of  company 
officers ;  eiohth,  certain  officers  of  the  State  and  of  the 
United  States  are  excluded  from  executive  and  legislative 
office  in  this  Commonwealth ;  twenty-seventh,  instructors  of 
Harvard  College  are  made  eligible  to  the  Legislature  ;  the 
twenty-third,  limiting  the  enfranchisement  of  certain  natur- 
alized persons  of  foreign  birth,  is  annulled  by  the  twenty- 
sixtli.  These  eight  articles  have  failed  to  impress  the 
public  mind  as  much  affecting  any  grave  principles  of  the 
government.  Articles  sixth  and  seventh  greatly  reduce  and 
simplify  the  oath  of  allegiance  formerly  taken  by  civil  and 
military  officers  of  the  State,  and  rescind  the  declaration 
originally  required  of  the  executive  and  legislative  officers 
of  their  belief  in  the  Christian  religion.  The  remaining 
articles  of  amendment  bear  a  more  important  and  apprecia- 
ble relation  to  the  orioinal  frame  of  the  Constitution. 

The  third  amendment,  framed  by  the  Convention  of  1820, 
and  the  twentieth,  adopted  in  1857,  made  a  radical  change  in 
the  qualifications  for  voting  at  elections.  The  original  Con- 
stitution required  on  the  part  of  the  voter  a  freehold  estate 
within  the  Commonwealth  of  the  annual  income  of  three 
pounds,  or  any  estate  of  the  value  of  sixty  pounds.  This  re- 
striction of  the  suffrage  to  the  possession  of  property  was  in 
some  measure  an  inheritance  of  the  people  of  this  country, 
though  greatly  reduced  from  the  extent  prevailing  in  England, 
and  in  their  oriQinal  constitutions  I  believe  all  the  States  ex- 
cept  three  had  similar  requirements  of  freehold  or  other  prop- 
erty. Tliis  limitation  continued  in  Massachusetts  forty  years, 
and  in  the  social  condition  of  that  period  it  worked  no  especial 
hardship.  There  was  here  a  yeomanry  at  that  time,  and  a 
spirit  of  simplicity  and  contentment.  But  the  change  of  in- 
dustries and  activities  incident  to  the  advance  of  a  more  com- 
mercial age  made  the  restriction  difficult  of  application,  and  it 


332       ADDRESSES  OF  ALEXANDER  II.  BULLOCK. 

was  stated  in  the  Convention  of  1820  that  it  had  in  practice 
become  to  some  extent  a  farce  and  a  mockery  not  conducive 
to  public  honesty.  Accordingly,  in  conformity  to  the  whole 
drift  of  our  time,  suffrage  was  thrown  open  to  all  male  inliab- 
itants  of  twenty-one  years,  by  whom  or  for  whom  a  State 
or  county  tax  has  been  paid  within  two  years  in  the  State, 
having  resided  in  the  State  one  year  and  in  the  town  six 
months,  paupers  and  persons  under  guardianship  excepted. 
The  other  cluinge  in  the  qualification  for  voting  was  made 
by  the  twentieth  amendment,  in  1859,  which  excludes  from 
the  right  of  suffrage  and  of  election  to  office  every  person 
who  is  not  able  to  read  the  Constitution  of  the  State  in  the 
English  language  and  to  write  his  name.  Thus  it  was  the 
purpose  of  the  one  amendment  to  enlarge  suffrage  as  to 
the  possession  of  property  qualification,  and  of  the  other 
amendment  to  bring  it  under  a  new  restriction  as  to  the 
possession  of  intelligence.  This  last  article  has  now  been 
in  existence  more  than  twenty  years,  and  whatever  doubts 
may  be  entertained  on  account  of  its  limited  and  artificial 
method  of  application,  it  seems  to  be  regarded  as  the  settled 
policy  of  the  State. 

These  restrictions  of  the  right  of  suffrage  are  frequently 
criticised  in  party  discussions  in  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  but  rarely  with  an  intelligent  understanding  of  their 
limited  effects  in  practice,  and  still  more  rarely  in  a  spirit  of 
justice  towards  the  motive  and  purpose  which  induced  their 
adoption.  But  more  strange  still  are  the  strictures  sometimes 
published  by  theoretical  writers  here  at  home  in  relation  to 
the  great  reduction  which  has  been  made  in  the  property 
qualification.  It  has  been  spoken  of  by  pessimist  writers  as 
equivalent  to  universal  suffrage,  and  our  system  of  popular 
elections  under  this  rule  has  been  pronounced  a  failure.  And 
this  is  said  in  Massachusetts  at  a  time  in  which  no  man  of 
observation  and  candor  can --fail  to  perceive  that  from  its 
legislation  and  from  its  judicature  the  spirit  of  intelligent 
reform  and  progress,  of  equity  and  justice,  of  liberty  regulated 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS    CONSTITUTION.     333 

by  law  and  law  tempered  by  liberty,  is  reflected  iu  at  least  as 
clear  and  broad  light  as  at  any  former  period ;  at  a  time  in 
which,  as  we  believe,  all  the  characteristics  of  an  advanced 
civilized  state,  so  happily  grouped  iu  John  Adams's  mem- 
orable Fifth  Chapter  of  1780,  are  here  more  generally  and 
securely  enjoyed  than  in  any  other  quarter. 

There  is  a  group  of  ten  articles  of  amendment,  adopted  by 
the  people  at  different  times,  of  which  some  were  afterwards 
annulled  by  the  adoption  of  others,  all  of  which  may  be 
briefly  stated  by  their  subjects,  which  are  nearly  related. 
These  articles  are  the  tenth,  twelfth,  thirteenth,  fifteenth,  six- 
teenth, seventeenth,  twenty-first,  twenty-second,  twenty-fourth, 
and  twenty-fifth,  and  it  is  only  necessary  to  state  the  effect  of 
them.  1.  They  have  changed  the  political  year  from  May  to 
January,  and  have  established  one  annual  session  of  the  Legis- 
lature instead  of  two,  and  have  transferred  the  time  of  the 
State  election  to  the  month  of  November.  2.  They  have 
fixed  the  number  of  councillors  as  eight,  and  have  constituted 
the  same  number  of  districts  in  which  these  officers  are  sev- 
erally to  be  chosen  by  the  people  from  their  own  number, 
3.  The  number  of  senators  has  been  established  as  forty,  and 
the  Commonwealth  is  divided  up  into  the  same  number  of 
senatorial  districts,  determined  by  the  number  of  legal  voters, 
who  shall  respectively  elect  from  their  own  number  the  forty 
senators,  thus  doing  away  witli  the  former  apportionment  to 
the  counties  as  senatorial  districts.  By  these  alterations  also 
have  been  swept  away  the  original  restriction  of  election  as 
senator  to  persons  having  a  freehold  of  tliree  hundred  pounds, 
or  personal  estate  of  six  hundred  pounds  in  value,  and  the 
restriction  of  eligibility  to  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  to 
persons  having  a  freehold  of  one  hundred  pounds,  or  ratable 
estate  of  two  hundred  pounds.  And  furthermore,  under  these 
amendments,  the  old  provision  of  property  basis  for  the  Senate, 
that  is  to  say,  of  apportioning  to  the  senatorial  districts  their 
respective  number  of  senators  according  to  the  proportion  of 
public  taxes  paid  by  said  districts  respectively,  disappeared 


o 


34  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER    II.    BULLOCK. 


in  1840.  The  original  provision,  placing  the  Senate  basis  on 
property,  was  debated  in  the  Convention  of  1820,  with  per- 
haps greater  vigor  and  eloquence  than  any  other  question,  the 
late  Governor  Lincoln  being  in  the  lead  of  the  champions  on 
the  side  of  the  popular  right,  and  Mr.  Webster  defending  the 
property  side  by  most  elaborate  reasoning,  aided  by  Judge 
Story  in  mingled  argument  and  declamation,  and  by  many 
others  who  shared  in  the  discussion.  The  old-time  reasoninsr, 
that  the  Senate  was  the  citadel  of  property  and  the  House  of 
popular  rights,  was  worked  and  almost  overworked  in  the 
discussion,  and  prevailed  with  the  delegates.  Strangely 
enough,  this  debate,  which  was  perhaps  the  ablest  of  all  the 
debates  in  that  convention  of  men  so  eminent,  could  not  now 
easily  be  made  palpable  to  the  appreciation  of  a  tentli  part  of 
the  three  hundred  thousand  voters  in  the  Commonwealth, 
and  Avas  so  far  forgotten,  only  twenty  years  afterwards,  that 
an  amendment  basing  tlie  apportionment  of  senators  upon 
the  simple  number  of  citizens  qualified  to  vote,  was  accepted 
b}^  the  people  as  one  of  the  ripe  fruits  of  modern  experience. 
The  only  State  whose  constitution  contained  this,  or  any  sim- 
ilar provision,  was  Xew  Hampshire,  in  which,  unless  annulled 
witliin  the  last  four  years,  it  still  remains  unchanged ;  but  to 
what  extent  it  is  carried  out  in  practice,  a  stranger  may  not 
be  presumed  to  know.  4.  These  articles  have,  one  after 
another,  entirely  altered  the  number  and  apportionment  of 
representatives  to  the  General  Court;  and  the  last  article, 
adopted  in  1857,  has  reduced  the  House  of  Representatives  to 
two  hundred  and  forty  members,  and  has  provided  for  the 
apportionment  in  representative  districts,  abolishing  the 
system  of  town  or  corporation  representation,  wliich  had 
existed  two  hundred  and  twenty  years.  No  other  question  in 
our  annals  has  been  so  frequently  and  fully  discussed  as  this, 
and  the  debates  upon  it,  if  compiled,  would  fill  many  pon- 
derous volumes.  Represenl;ation  by  towns  was  one  of  the 
earliest  things  established  in  the  first  days  of  the  colony,  and 
as  far  back  as  1641  this  right  was  registered  as  the  sixty- 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     335 

second  fundamental  in  the  constitutional  code  of  the  Body  of 
Liberties.  The  history  of  the  subject  illustrates  the  cumula- 
tive force  of  custom,  and  tlie  difficulty  of  overcoming  tradi- 
tional practice,  even  after  it  has  become  incongruous  and 
impracticable.  If,  in  the  days  of  Winthrop's  administration, 
any  other  than  the  town  system  of  representation  had  been 
fixed  upon,  it  may  be  presumed  there  might  have  been  a  less 
strenuous  adherence  to  it;  but  the  long  enjoyment  of  the 
right  by  the  several  small  and  homogeneous  communities  iu 
the  townships  endeared  it  to  them  as  a  thing  almost  sacred. 
The  customs,  the  consuetudines,  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  have 
for  six  centuries  been  among  the  things  least  susceptible  of 
change.  The  method  of  election  by  districts,  which  has  now 
been  in  use  for  twenty-four  years,  may  be  deemed  one  of 
those  steps  of  reform  which  are  rarely  reversed,  and  it  is  in 
accord  with  the  principle  adopted  by  all  of  the  States  of  this 
Union,  except  the  five  other  States  of  New  England,  which 
still  adhere  substantially  to  the  traditions  of  the  period  of  the 
early  settlements.  6.  By  the  same  group  of  amendments  the 
Secretary,  Treasurer,  Auditor,  and  Attorney- General,  usually 
termed  executive  officers  on  the  ticket  with  the  Governor  and 
Lieutenant-Governor,  are  made  annually  elective  by  the  whole 
people  from  their  own  number. 

By  the  fourteenth  amendment,  1855,  in  the  election  of  all 
civil  officers  of  the  State,  provided  for  by  the  Constitution, 
the  rule  of  plurality  of  votes  has  taken  the  place  of  that  of 
a  majority.  The  general  degree,  not  merely  of  acquiescence, 
but  of  satisfaction,  which  has  been  manifested  for  twenty- 
five  years  under  the  operation  of  this  provision,  adds 
another  to  the  hundreds  of  illustrations  of  the  general 
truth,  that  whenever  in  administering  government  two  sys- 
tems are  in  question,  both  artificial  or  arbitrary  as  to  any 
fundamental  principle,  prejudice  of  attachment  to  an  ancient 
practice  must  give  way  to  the  convenience  of  modern  com- 
munities. 

The  eighteenth  amendment,  1855,  has  made  it  a  part  of  the 


336  ADDRESSES   OF  ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

organic  law  of  the  State,  that  all  moneys  raised  by  taxation 
in  the  towns  and  cities,  or  appropriated  by  the  Legislature, 
for  tlie  support  of  public  schools,  shall  be  applied  only  to 
schools  which  are  under  the  superintendence  of  the  consti- 
tuted municipal  authorities,  and  shall  never  be  appropriated 
to  schools  maintained  by  any  religious  sect.  I  have  not 
observed  that  this  provision  has  as  yet  been  adopted  by  any 
other  State.  Its  acceptance  by  the  people  of  Massachusetts, 
twenty-five  years  ago,  has  given  a  conclusion  in  advance  to 
questions  of  which  the  agitation  has  since  threatened  to 
spring  up  out  of  tendencies  which  have  rapidly  made  head- 
way toward  the  establishment  of  parochial  and  denomina- 
tional schools.  The  authorship  of  this  article  belongs  to 
the  late  Chief  Justice  Joel  Parker,  who  was  its  mover  and 
foremost  advocate,  aided  by  the  late  Vice-President  Wilson, 
in  the  Convention  of  1853  ;  and  although  it  was  rejected  by 
the  people,  in  that  year,  as  an  integral  part  of  the  general 
body  of  amendments  which  were  framed  amid  the  excite- 
ment of  party  politics,  it  was  promptly  taken  up  by  the 
next  Legislature  and  easily  passed  through  all  the  constitu- 
tional stages. 

The  nineteenth  article  of  amendment,  1855,  has  tran.s- 
ferred  from  the  chief  executive  of  the  Commonwealth  to  the 
people  of  the  counties  and  districts,  the  selection  of  sher- 
iffs, probate  registers,  clerks  of  the  courts,  and  district  at- 
torneys, annulling  a  principle  which  had  been  in  existence 
since  the  foundation  of  the  Government.  The  same  thing 
was  attempted  in  the  Convention  of  1820,  and  was  sum- 
marily voted  down.  The  sound  and  solid  reasons  against 
this  proposition  are  too  obvious,  and  have  been  too  fre- 
quently elucidated  in  discussion,  to  warrant  their  present 
repetition.  The  history  of  its  adoption  is  the  history  of  the 
mingling  of  a  constitutional  question  of  enduring  impor- 
tance with  an  ephemeral  question  of  party  expediency.  It 
liad  been  carried  through  the  Constitutional  Convention  of 
1853  by  one  political  party,  and  after  its  rejection  by  the 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     337 

people  it  was  taken  up  by  another  party  on  its  return  to 
power,  and  adopted  as  one  of  the  conditions  of  appeasing  its 
opponents  and  of  its  own  continuance  in  power.  It  was  an 
unseanianlike  instance  of  throwing  a  tub  to  the  whale,  after 
the  whale  had  disappeared  in  far  water.  It  was  a  propitia- 
tory offering  by  a  noble  party  in  the  weakness  of  its  last 
days,  sacrificing  an  elemental  principle  of  the  Constitution, 
but  bringing  not  even  the  expected  advantage  to  its  authors ; 
for  in  the  same  year  the  party  itself  took  its  departure  from 
American  politics.  I  have  heard  judges  say — judges,  the 
mention  of  whose  names  awakens  respect  and  confidence 
over  the  Commonwealth  —  that  the  practice  under  this  new 
system  has  indicated  a  degeneracy  from  the  better  condition 
under  the  old  system.  Attempts  have  since  been  made  to 
restore  the  ancient  constitutional  method,  and  may  it  not  be 
hoped  the  people  of  Massachusetts  will  yet  return  to  it  ? 

The  eleventli  amendment  is  that  of  the  third  article  of  the 
Bill  of  Eights,  the  only  instance  in  which  those  Eights  have 
been  touched  by  the  hand  of  change  in  the  entire  century. 
The  orighial  third  article  is  the  only  one  in  the  Declaration 
of  which  John  Adams  was  not  the  author,  but  he  had  the 
credit  of  it,  at  least  to  some  extent,  in  other  parts  of  the 
United  States.  In  the  recently  published  Warren  letters, 
alreadv  mentioned,  written  in  1807,  he  himself  eives  a 
curious  account  of  an  interview  with  him,  sought  by  the 
pastor  of  a  German  church  in  a  town  of  Pennsylvania, 
while  on  his  last  journey  to  Washington,  pending  his  second 
candidacy  for  the  presidency ;  during  which  the  minister 
made  known  that  there  was  a  general  belief  in  that  section 
that  Mr.  Adams  had  influence  enough  in  making  the  Massa- 
chusetts Constitution  to  establish  here  the  Presbyterian 
(Congregational)  religion  and  make  all  other  sects  of  Chris- 
tians pay  taxes  for  the  support  of  it ;  and  Mr.  Adams 
states  that  this  report "  had  an  immense  effect "  among  many 
religious  sects,  "and  turned  them  in  such  numbers  as  de- 
cided  the  [fourth   presidential]   election."     This  memorable 

22 


338       ADDRESSES  OF  ALEXANDER  H,  BULLOCK. 

third  article  was  so  unlike  anything  contained  in  the  con- 
stitutions of  most  of  the  other  States,  and  so  strongly  in 
contrast  with  the  aim  and  scope  of  religious  thought  after 
the  Eevolution,  that  it  awakened  general  attention  and  criti- 
cism outside  of  New  England.  The  precise  posture,  both 
towards  the  past  and  future,  of  public  opinion  on  this  ques- 
tion within  this  Commonwealth,  was  justly  stated  in  a  letter 
of  Dr.  Franklin,  written  to  liichard  Price  in  October,  1780, 
immediately  after  the  ratification  of  this  instrument:  — 

"  Though  the  people  of  Massachusetts  have  not  in  their  new 
Constitution  kept  quite  clear  of  religious  tests,  yet,  if  we  consider 
what  that  people  were  a  hundred  years  ago,  we  must  allow  they 
have  gone  great  lengths  in  liberality  of  sentiment  on  religious  sub- 
jects; and  we  may  look  for  greater  degrees  of  perfection,  when 
their  Constitution,  some  years  hence,  shall  be  revised." 

A  similar  forecast  of  subsequent  experience  was  made  on 
the  other  side  of  the  ocean  by  Dr.  Paley.  My  attention  to 
the  following  passage  from  his  "  Political  Philosophy,"  pub- 
lished in  1785,  has  been  drawn  by  the  very  instructive  dis- 
course upon  the  Centenary  of  the  Constitution,  delivered  in 
January,  1880,  by  the  Ptev.  Dr.  Edward  E.  Hale  :  — 

"  The  only  plan  which  seems  to  render  the  legal  maintenance  of 
a  clergy  practicable,  without  the  legal  preference  of  one  sect  of 
Christians  to  others,  is  that  of  an  experiment  which  is  said  to  be 
attempted  or  designed  in  some  of  the  new  states  of  North  America. 
In  this  scheme  it  is  not  left  to  the  option  of  the  subject  whether 
he  will  contribute,  or  how  much  he  shall  contribute,  to  the  main- 
tenance of  a  Christian  ministry ;  it  is  only  referred  to  his  choice  to 
determine  by  what  sect  his  contribution  shall  be  received.  .  ,  . 
The  above  aiTangement  is  undoubtedly  the  best  that  has  been 
proposed  upon  this  principle  :  it  bears  the  appearance  of  liberality 
and  justice ;  it  may  contain  some  solid  advantages ;  nevertheless, 
it  labors  under  inconveniences  which  will  be  found,  I  think,  upon 
trial,  to  overbalance  all  its  recommendations." 

This  article  made  it  the  right  and  the  duty  of  the  Legisla- 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     339 

ture  to  require  of  the  people  support  of  public  worship  and 
of  religious  teachers  by  compulsory  taxation,  and  to  enjoin 
attendance  on  Divine  worship.  The  address  of  the  Conven- 
tion of  1780,  recommending  to  the  people  the  result  of  its 
labors,  which  has  been  said  to  have  been  written  by  Samuel 
Adams,  states  that  this  article  was  passed  with  more  than 
common  unanimity ;  but  a  large  vote  was  returned  against 
it,  and,  pending  the  question  of  the  ratification,  it  encoun- 
tered the  general  opposition  of  the  citizens  of  Boston, 
who  assembled  in  Faneuil  Hall  and  adopted  hostile  resolu- 
tions with  almost  unanimous  consent.  The  proposition  was 
the  natural  product  of  the  blending  of  the  civil  and  ecclesi- 
astical functions  of  the  State  under  the  Puritan  regime  in 
the  formative  period.  As  early  as  1638,  a  law  subjecting 
to  "  assessment  and  distress  "  all  who  should  not  voluntarily 
support  the  ordinances  in  the  churches ;  a  similar  act  in 
1654,  when  the  colony  had  become  large ;  in  1693,  when 
under  the  new  charter  there  were  upwards  of  eighty 
churches,  an  act  requiring  every  town  to  support  a  Congre- 
gational minister,  and  assessing  therefor  all  inhabitants  of 
whatever  society  relations ;  —  these  may  be  singled  out  among 
the  many  instances  of  the  stern  policy  which  continued,  at 
times  somewhat  relaxing,  into  the  latter  half  of  the  last 
century.  The  reactionary  sentiment  relating  to  this  subject, 
which  sprung  up  about  the  time  of  the  Kevolution,  was  not 
sufficient  to  prevent  the  adoption  of  the  third  article ;  but 
large  and  increasing  numbers  became  at  once  restive  under 
its  operation.  The  opposition  to  it  afterwards  grew  more 
intensive  by  reason  of  great  changes  in  the  number  and 
mutual  relations  of  Christian  sects  and  parishes,  to  which 
judicial  decisions  added  further  elements  of  public  dissat- 
isfaction. The  Convention  of  1820  contended  with  these 
difficulties  through  long  and  grave  deliberations,  and  after 
exhaustive  discussion  proposed  a  modification,  which  proved 
unsatisfactory  to  the  people  and  failed  of  ratification.  The 
agitation  of  the  question  was  resumed  and  continued  until 


340  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   II.   BULLOCK. 

the  year  1833,  when  the  present  amendment  was  adopted. 
Of  the  many  legislative  reports  upon  the  subject,  the  last 
was  made  in  the  Senate  by  Mr.  Samuel  Hoar,  in  1833,  who 
stated  that,  "  as  the  alteration  would  liberate  the  citizens 
from  liability  to  compulsory  taxation  for  the  support  of 
public  worship,  in  the  existing  state  of  the  ecclesiastical 
societies  in  the  Commonwealth,"  it  was  expedient  it  should 
pass.  The  experience  of  almost  fifty  years  under  the  change 
has  been  accompanied  by  general  content  with  its  jDrovisions  ; 
and  all  that  now  remains  of  the  famous  third  article,  upon 
which  volumes  have  been  written  and  spoken,  is  comprised 
in  the  three  simple  propositions,  (1)  religious  equality  to  all 
denominations,  (2)  the  right  of  every  religious  society  to 
raise  money  for  its  expenses,  and  (3)  the  right  of  every  per- 
son to  be  exempt  from  sharing  in  the  expense  unless  he 
voluntarily  enrolls  himself  as  a  member.  The  prediction  of 
Dr.  Franklin  has  been  fulfilled,  and  the  principle  of  absolute 
religious  liberty,  sometimes  called  the  freedom  of  the  mind, 
sometimes  called  "  soul  liberty,"  traced  by  some  to  the  phi- 
losophy of  Descartes,  adopted  as  a  political  policy  by  Eoger 
Williams  in  Ehode  Island  before  Descartes  had  published 
any  philosophy,  has  now  been  a  part  of  the  Constitution  of 
Massachusetts  nearly  half  a  century. 

The  only  amendment  which  remains  to  be  mentioned  is 
the  ninth,  which  I  deem  most  valuable  of  all.  After  1795, 
and  prior  to  1820,  there  was  no  provision  in  the  Constitu- 
tion for  its  revisal.  The  convention  of  that  year,  on  the 
report  of  Mr.  Webster,  adopted  this  article,  which  provides 
that  any  amendment  approved  by  a  majority  of  the  Senators 
and  two  thirds  of  the  Representatives  voting  upon  it  in 
two  successive  years,  and  then  being  ratified  by  a  majority 
of  the  people  voting  on  it,  shall  become  a  part  of  the  Con- 
stitution. And  this  article  was  ratified  by  the  people, 
although  it  appears  that  they  were  so  adverse  to  opening 
any  door  for  alterations  of  the  organic  structure  of  their 
government,  that  nearly  one  third  of  all  the  votes  cast  were 


CENTENNIAL  OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     341 

given  against  even  this  well-guarded  provision.  It  was  the 
object  of  the  convention,  in  providing  this  method  for  possi- 
ble changes  in  the  Constitution,  to  forestall  any  necessity  for 
calling  conventions,  and  to  discourage  a  practice,  since  not 
uncommon  in  some  of  the  States,  of  educating  the  people  in 
the  exercise  of  constitution-making.  The  admirable  success 
of  this  provision  is  shown  by  the  fact  that,  of  the  whole 
number  of  amendments  made  in  the  last  sixty  years,  all  but 
the  nine  which  were  initiated  by  the  Convention  of  1820, 
that  is  to  say,  eighteen  of  the  twenty-seven,  have  come  to 
us  in  the  manner  thus  provided.  The  greater  safety  of  this 
method  over  that  of  conventions  made  easy  and  frequent,  is 
obvious  to  reason,  and  it  received  the  signal  approval  of  the 
people  themselves  in  1853,  when  they  rejected  the  whole 
catalogue  of  amendments  offered  to  them  by  the  convention 
of  that  year,  including  six  which  only  two  years  later  they 
ratified  when  coming  to  them  through  the  stages  pointed 
out  by  the  Convention  of  1820.  It  may  now  be  regarded 
the  settled  conviction  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts  that 
they  prefer  to  obtain  amendments  of  their  government  in 
the  more  slow,  more  calm,  more  conservative  manner  herein 
indicated.  The  Convention  of  1853  offered  to  the  citizens 
of  the  State  a  policy  of  such  frequent  conventions  for  con- 
stitutional revisal  that  now,  after  subsidence  of  the  excite- 
ment of  that  day,  it  may  fairly  be  pronounced  unprecedented 
and  grotesque.  The  folly  of  its  proposed  treatment  of  a 
supposed  chronic  distemper  in  the  body  politic,  only  from 
the  dispensary  of  frequent  and  periodical  constitutional  con- 
ventions, was  graphically  exposed  by  Dr.  J.  G.  Palfrey,  in  his 
clear  and  analytical  address  to  the  people.  '•'  Florence,"  said 
Dr.  Palfrey,  "  before  her  frolics  of  this  kind  were  brought  to 
an  end  by  the  Grand  Ducal  despotism,  had  at  one  time,  if  I 
remember  aright,  five  constitutions  in  ten  years.  It  was  not 
the  way  to  a  quiet  life." 

An  analysis  of  the  several  amendments  accepted  in  the 
last  sixty  years  discloses  that  we  live  under  the  same  sub- 


342  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

stantive    form   of  government   which   was    established    one 
luindred  years  ago.     But  five  of  all  the   amendments  have 
introduced  any  new  subject  matter  in  the  Constitution  ;  all 
the  rest  of  them  have  been  modifications,  —  some  of  them  re- 
pealing others ;  many  of  them  susceptible  of  being  grouped 
under  a  single  head  as  affecting  the  machinery  of  the  elec- 
tion of   the  executive  and  legislative  officers ;  a  portion  of 
them  merely  formal;  and  only  a  small  part  of  the  whole 
number  touching  any  elementary   principle  of   the  govern- 
ment.     Since   the   establishment   of  this   Constitution,   the 
population  of  the  Commonwealth  has  more  than  quintupled, 
and  there  has  been  more  than  a  corresponding  advance  in 
its   aggregated   wealth,  and    in  the  diffusion  of  competence 
and  comfort  among  its  subjects.     With  rare  exceptions,  the 
generations  have  carried  out  in  good  faith  the  intent  of  the 
framers.      Under  the  high  and  inspiring  tone   which   they 
transfused  into  the  Constitution  there  has  been,  there  is  now, 
constant  advancement  on  every  field  of  "  literature  and  the 
sciences,    of  humanity   and   general   benevolence,  of  public 
and   private   charity,"  of  legislation,  of  judicial  interpreta- 
tion, and  impartial  administration  of  the  laws.     The  later 
change  of   the  homogeneousness  of  our  population  by  the 
admixture  of   races   imposes   upon   men   of  education   and 
authority  a  constantly  increasing  duty  to  impress  upon  the 
people  the  value  of  this  Constitution,  and  the  importance  of 
protecting  it  from  every  unnecessary  alteration.     And  upon 
no  body  of  men  does  tliis   duty  rest  with  higher  responsi- 
bility  than  upon  the  Historical  Societies  of  JMassachusetts, 
in   the  archives   of  which   the  names  and  the  fame  of  its 
authors  are  treasured  and  i^uarded. 

There  is  no  technical  science  of  government,  and  there 
can  be  none.  The  history  of  free  nations  has  illustrated 
the  truth  that  governments  are  growths,  springing  from 
necessities  and  conveniences  suggested  by  experience  ;  and 
they  approximate  to  the  highest  dictates  of  reason,  according 
to   the   growth   of  communities   in  intelligence  and  virtue. 


CENTENNIAL   OF  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   CONSTITUTION.     343 

The  principles  essential  for  the  groundwork  of  government 
for  a  free  and  virtuous  commonwealth  are  few  and  elemen- 
tary, and  the  world  has  never  beheld  them  so  well  applied 
or  so  happily  illustrated  as  in  the  governments  of  the  States 
of  tliis  Union.  Of  all  these  States,  I  may  be  pardoned  for 
selecting  Massachusetts  as  a  type  for  the  sound  principles 
embodied  in  the  foundations,  and  for  a  steadfast  adherence 
to  them  through  a  hundred  years.  And  yet,  how  simple 
the  essential  parts  of  all  this  framework  are,  has  been  well 
stated  by  John  Adams,  the  framer-in-chief :  — 

"  Representations,  instead  of  collections,  of  the  people ;  a  total 
separation  of  the  executive  from  the  legislative  power,  and  of  the 
judicial  from  both ;  and  a  balance  in  the  legislature,  by  three  inde- 
pendent, equal  branches,  —  are  perhaps  the  three  only  discoveries 
in  the  constitution  of  a  free  government,  since  the  institution  of 
Lycurgus.  Even  these  have  been  so  unfortunate  that  they  have 
never  spread  :  the  first  has  been  given  up  by  all  the  nations,  ex- 
cepting one,  who  had  once  adopted  it ;  and  the  other  two,  reduced 
to  practice,  if  not  invented,  by  the  English  nation,  have  never 
been  imitated  by  any  other  except  their  own  descendants  in 
America." 


JAMES  A.   GARFIELD. 

memorial  observances  in  the  city  of  worcester,  sept.  26,  188l 

Mr.  Mayor  and  Fellow-Citizens  : 

I  HAVE  no  words,  I  have  no  capacity  for  words,  fitted  to 
this  occasion  of  distress  and  sympathy.  The  pall  which 
hung  suspended  in  mid-heaven  well-nigh  three  months,  has 
at  length  dropped  and  thrown  its  shadow  over  all.  Never 
before,  for  a  similar  period  of  time,  have  the  sensibilities  of 
fifty  millions  of  people,  having  in  accord  with  them  the  hearts 
of  all  civilized  countries,  been  so  stirred  each  morning  and 
evening  by  alternations  of  hope  and  despair,  —  by  one  com- 
mon, univei'sal  emotion  of  sympathy  for  a  national  victim 
suffering  with  a  heroism  patient  and  sublime ;  by  daily  bul- 
letins of  scenes  of  domestic  devotion  and  tenderness  of  rarest 
sweetness  ;  by  an  all-pervading  anxiety,  which  found  then  its 
only  relief  in  a  nation's  prayers,  which  reaches  now  its  natu- 
ral termination  when  the  sense  of  anxiety  is  supplanted  by 
the  sense  of  desolation.  Such  has  been  our  intensified  con- 
sciousness and  experience  for  a  period  of  three  months.  The 
drama  is  over.  The  strain  which  this  prolonged  and  anxious 
suspense  has  laid  upon  our  emotional  nature  has  given  way 
to  the  last  tidings  and  to  the  last  grief. 

The  President  has  passed  from  the  scene  of  daily  bulletins, 
and  henceforth  he  is  at  rest.  The  memory  of  his  life  and 
character  Avill  be  embalmed  "in  our  hearts  by  the  memory  of 
his  sufferings  and  death.  Never  before,  in  the  annals  of  the 
race,  on  so  large  a  field  of  observation,  have  a  whole  people 


JAMES   A.    GARFIELD.  345 

been  brought  so  closely  and  tenderly  around  the  death-bed  of 
their  ruler.  From  the  East  and  West,  from  the  North  and 
South,  from  the  ever-memorable  2d  of  July  to  the  memo- 
rable 19th  of  September,  every  American  \vas  brought  by 
the  electric  cords  into  an  intimate  acquaintance  witli  the 
President,  —  an  acquaintance  which  has  been  enriched,  en- 
deared, and  sanctified  by  the  pathos  of  eacli  succeeding  day. 
He  was  struck  down  at  the  moment  of  starting  on  his  first 
official  excursion,  designed  that  he  might  become  better  ac- 
quainted with  the  people  of  his  care  in  New  England ;  but 
they  know  him  far  better  now  than  would  have  been  possible 
from  his  passing  through  their  villages,  even  with  all  his 
magnetic  power  in  life.  And  what  a  scene  for  acquaintance 
that  has  been,  which  we  have  all,  as  it  were,  witnessed !  His 
submission  to  the  first  shock,  without  repining ;  liis  serene 
acceptance  of  the  slight  hope  which  was  held  out  to  him  for 
living ;  his  calmness  and  fortitude  through  these  eighty  days, 
alternating  with  light  and  darkness ;  his  thoughtfulness  and 
inquiry  for  the  public  service  amid  the  weariness  and  depres- 
sion of  his  sinking  condition  ;  his  affectionate  intercourse 
from  the  couch  of  languishing  with  his  family,  his  kindred, 
and  his  friends ;  his  resolute  determination  to  live  for  his 
country,  if  it  might  be  possible,  but  readiness  to  depart,  if 
such  were  the  Divine  will ;  his  almost  triumphant  gazing 
upon  the  sea,  "the  emblem  of  eternity,  the  throne  of  the 
invisible,"  with  which  his  spirit  fell  into  sweet  and  solemn 
harmony ;  his  last  evening  upon  earth,  when  in  the  presence 
of  those  most  dear  to  him,  and  of  the  kindly  refrain  of  the 
ocean,  and  of  the  constellations  shining  over  him,  his  soul 
ascended  above  the  constellations,  attuned  to  the  aj)ostrophe 
of  the  pious  Doddridge  :  — 

"  Ye  stars  are  but  the  shining  dust  of  my  divine  abode, 
The  pavement  of  the  heavenly  court  where  I  shall  reign  with  God." 

Ah,  my  friends,  these  scenes  have  made  up  a  treasury  for 
the  memory,  for  the  instruction,  for  the  frequently  recurring 


346  ADDRESSES   OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK, 

sympathies  and  affections  of  the  American  people  for  many 
years  to  come.  And  so  long  as  they  shall  continue  to  lament 
the  blow  which  cut  him  down  at  the  xery  opening  of  a  bril- 
liant national  career,  their  affections  and  susceptibilities  will 
group  themselves  around  these  scenes  of  mourning  all  the 
more  tenderly  because  of  the  personal  virtues  which  diffuse 
such  fragrance  over  his  untimely  end. 

But  in  this  hour  of  our  grief  and  depression  let  us  take 
heart  that,  while  the  Lord  removes  the  workman,  he  will 
carry  on  the  work.  As  the  late  President  himself  observed, 
when,  sixteen  years  ago,  his  martyr  predecessor  was  in  the 
same  manner  taken  from  us,  it  becomes  us  to  remember  that 
God  reigns  and  the  nation  lives.  Kings  and  Presidents  die, 
but  the  State  is  immortal.  Some  of  you  have  gazed  at  tlie 
window  in  the  vast  palace  at  Versailles,  where,  in  former 
days,  when  the  French  monarchy  lived,  the  state  herald 
stepped  out  at  the  moment  of  the  death  of  a  king,  proclaim- 
ing, "  The  King  is  dead ;  hail  to  the  King."  It  was  giv- 
ing form  and  expression  to  the  impressive  truth  that,  while 
rulers  are  mortal,  the  nation  is  perpetual,  under  the  protection 
of  the  Most  High.  I  was  impressed  by  a  remark  which  was 
made  by  the  late  Lord  Beaconsfield  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
upon  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  President  Lincoln.  He 
said  that  he  liad  noticed  that  assassination  had  seldom 
affected  the  current  of  history.  The  remark  is  largely  true, 
and  is  fraught  with  historical  encouragement.  The  Lord  in 
his  wisdom  permits  the  assassin  to  play  his  foul  part ;  but  it 
stops  with  one  life,  and  he  is  not  permitted  to  obstruct  the 
august  purposes  of  Providence  in  the  affairs  of  the  world. 
Gerard  inflicted  what  seemed  a  mortal  blow  upon  the  hopes 
of  the  Low  Counties  in  the  assassination  of  William  the 
Silent ;  but  there  was  still  left  a  Euler  above,  and  tlie  people 
of  those  stricken  states  continued  on  in  their  strus^de  till 
they  conquered  independence  of  the  Spanish  King  and  deliv- 
erance from  the  Spanish  inquisition.  Eavaillac  gave  a  terrible 
shock  to  the  spirit  of  the  French  people  by  the  murder  of 


JAMES   A.    GARFIELD.  347 

Henry  the  Fourth ;  but  the  irresistible  wheels  of  Providence 
continued  to  revolve  propitiously  over  progressive  and  beauti- 
ful France.  And,  at  a  most  critical  stage  of  our  own  history, 
Booth  startled  the  human  race  from  its  confidence  by  the 
death  of  Lincoln ;  but  the  American  people  took  affairs  into 
their  own  hands,  and  reconstructed  and  reconsolidated  what, 
by  common  consent,  is  now  the  foremost  nation  of  the  world. 
This  same  instruction  is  repeated  by  the  present  calamity. 
It  is  among  the  inscrutable  and  mysterious  dealings  of  Divine 
Providence  that  our  chief  magistrate,  so  noble  by  the  temper 
of  his  mind  and  heart,  so  invested  with  promise  to  this 
country  by  his  broad  experience  and  attainments,  so  certain 
to  become  an  exemplar  for  any  future  age  by  his  purity  of 
character,  should  have  been  allowed  to  fall  by  the  liand  of 
the  assassin.  But  the  mystery  goes  no  farther ;  and  it  has 
been  assured  to  us,  by  the  manifestations  of  God  in  history, 
that  the  consequences  of  the  crime  cannot  reach  the  life  of 
the  Government.  No,  —  let  us  not  be  afraid  of  any  disturb- 
ance of  the  American  Government,  which  is  allied  to  the 
throne  of  Heaven  and  to  the  hearts  of  fifty  millions  who 
trust  in  the  God  of  their  fathers. 

And,  in  this  moment  of  our  bereavement,  it  is  important 
that  we  take  one  thought  more  into  our  reflections.  It  is 
important  that  we  should  guard  the  fountains  of  the  moral 
sense  of  the  nation,  which  is  the  only  source  of  the  public 
security.  When  the  disorganizer  is  a  conspicuous  factor  of 
the  social  problem,  let  the  Christian  conservator  take  heed 
of  his  own  responsibility.  Every  virtuous  magistrate,  every 
minister  of  our  holy  religion,  every  public  or  private  teacher, 
every  man  and  woman  of  sobriety  of  thought,  —  let  him,  let 
her,  in  every  word  of  the  mouth,  in  every  lesson  to  the  young, 
be  set  firm  against  the  socialistic  doctrine,  —  that  doctrine  of 
shame  and  horror,  —  tliat  the  assassin  may  be  a  legitimate 
instrument  of  reform.  To  the  assassin,  if  to  any  one  in  the 
whole  universe  of  God,  should  be  appropriated  the  Latin 
phrase  of  the  law  of  nations,  —  liostis  humani  generis,  —  the 


348  ADDRESSES    OF   ALEXANDER   H.    BULLOCK. 

eiuray  of  the  human  race.  Americans  who  instil  the  opinion 
that  some  particular  national  ruler  may  pass  rightfully  under 
the  stroke  of  the  assassin,  give  that  support  to  this  enemy 
of  mankind  which  may  commend,  nay,  which  has  already 
commended,  our  poisoned  chalice  to  our  own  lips.  The  sov- 
ereign of  the  great  empire  in  the  East  —  the  only  crowned 
head  in  all  Europe  who  was  our  true  and  steadfast  friend 
through  every  crisis  of  our  late  civil  war  —  had  scarcely  been 
struck  down  by  a  band  of  assassins,  and  voices  of  approval 
uttered  in  the  free  speech  of  this  country  had  scarcely  died 
away  from  the  lips  of  many  persons,  native  and  foreign-born 
alike,  when  the  dangerous  lesson  fell  with  horrible  application 
at  our  own  door.  There  can  be  no  tribunal  in  all  the  earth 
which  may  establish  a  boundary  between  justifiable  and 
unjustifiable  assassination;  and  whenever  or  wherever,  in 
Europe  or  in  the  United  States,  the  assassin  is  about  to  pro- 
ceed to  his  work,  he  himself  alone  becomes  the  judge  of  his 
justification.  If  in  our  time  there  be  any  doctrine  which 
above  every  other  is  abhorrent  to  Christian  sentiment,  and  is 
loaded  with  peril  to  social  order,  it  is  this.  Let  the  American 
people,  in  the  interests  of  religion  and  humanity,  for  their 
own  salvation  and  security,  visit  upon  every  such  or  kindred 
instruction  their  indignation  and  condemnation.  It  is  fit  and 
proper  that  we  inscribe  this  lesson  upon  our  hearts  as  we 
bend  in  reverence  and  humiliation  before  the  inscrutable  dis- 
pensation which  lias  visited  upon  our  country  one  of  the 
signal  horrors  of  the  age.  We  cannot  supplicate  the  protec- 
tion and  blessing  of  Him  who  holds  in  his  control  the  des- 
tinies of  this  nation,  unless  we  nerve  ourselves  to  the  duties 
which  He  has  imposed  upon  us  as  free  agents  of  an  organized 
Christian  government. 


INDEX. 


INDEX. 


Adams,  Charles  Francis,  mentioned,  307, 

323. 
Adams,  John,  at  the  Continental  Congress, 
56. 

mentioned,  49,  61. 

second  President  of  the  United  States, 
166. 

concerning  slavery,  169. 

learning  of,  235. 

his  education,  research,  &c.,  238. 

concerning  framing  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  Massachusetts,  309,  310. 

concerning    religion    in    the    Bill    of 
Rights,  316. 

framing  the  Constitution,  317. 

letter  of,  to  John  Fenn,  318. 

concerning  "good  humor"  among  the 
people,  323. 

his  interest  in  natural  history,  323. 

letter  to  Dr.  Belknap,  quoted,  326. 

chosen  president  of  Convention  of  J  780, 
329. 

member  of  Convention  of  1780,  329. 

interview    with     pastor    of     German 
church  in  Pennsylvania,  337. 

quoted,  313. 
Adams,  John  Quincy,  prediction  concern- 
ing slaver}',  170. 
Adams,  Samuel,  concerning  the  Revolu- 
tion, 139. 

the  will  of,  235. 

mentioned,  238. 

member  of  Convention  of  1789,  309,310. 
Address   before  the  Literary  Societies  of 
Williams  College,  45. 

before  Free  Institute  of  Industrial  Sci- 
ence at  Worcester,  187. 

on  the   character  of   Dr.   Samuel  G. 
Howe,  248. 

at  unveiling  of   statue  of  Alexander 
Hamilton,  287. 

on  the  Centennial  of  the  Massachusetts 
Constitution,  298. 


Address  on  death  of  James  A.  Garfield,  344, 
Agassiz,  Louis,  naturalist  of   Cambridge, 

mentioned,  1S9. 
Aiken,  John,  English  writer,  mentioned, 

273. 
Amazon  River,  American  influence  extends 

to,  52. 
Amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 330-340. 
concerning  election  in  Massachusetts, 
333. 
America,  if  the  Union  were  broken,  49. 
the  birth  of,  and  rising  of  Bacon  con- 
temporaneous occurrences,  51. 
has  opened  commerce  with  Japan,  52. 
has  interpreted  the  dream  of  Colum- 
bus, 52. 
extent  of  her  shipping,  52. 
■what  she  has  done  for  genius  and  art, 

52. 
her  early  discoveries,  settlements,  &c., 

53. 
the  colonial  period  of,  53. 
the  revolutionary  period  of,  53. 
American    government,    the,    of    Grecian 
model,  61. 
established,  198. 
American  merchant  abroad,  the,  198. 
American  nationalit}-  in  its  unity  and  in  its 
diversity  considered,  50. 
what  its  development  has  done  for  the 

world,  52. 
from  what  it  has  grown,  54. 
considered  in  its  diversity,  54,  55. 
an  invocation  for  its  preservation,  65. 
the  future  of,  174. 

the  first  conception  of,  in  America,  234. 
Americans,  respect  of,  for  scholars,  think- 
ers, soldiers,  61. 
Ames,  Fisher,  American  statesman,  61. 
policy  of,  125. 

concerning  the  framing  of  the  Consti- 
tution, 141. 
mentioned,  292. 


352 


INDEX. 


Amherst  College,  address  before  Alumni 
of,  30. 
contrasts  of  its  historj-,  31,  32. 
its  students,  32. 
its  graduates,  33. 
its  title  of  benefactor,  34. 
the  future  inlluence  of  its  graduates, 

35. 
address  before  Alumni  of,  15G. 
concerning  the  grant  of  Legislature  to, 

157. 
in  her  prime,  160. 
Amherst,  Gen.  Jeffrey,  an  English  general, 

mentioned,  204. 
Andersonville,  Union  prisoners  at,  126. 
Andes  Mountain,  American  influence  ex- 
tends to,  52. 
Andrew,  Gov.  John  A.,  war  governor  of 

Massachusetts,  207. 
Antietam,  mentioned,  40,  43. 

death    of    Lieutenant    Holbrook    at, 
41. 
"A  peace  of  war,"  172. 
Arkwriglit,   Sir  Eichard,  English  factory 

owner,  19,  137. 
Armstrong,  Timothy,  soldier  of  the  Kevo- 

lution,  124. 
Arnold,   Dr.  Thomas,   of  Kugbv,  quoted, 

138. 
Assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Presi- 
dent of  United  States,  76. 
how  it  affects  history-,  346. 
of    James    A.   Garfield,    President  of 
United  States,  344. 
Athens,  cause  of  her  greatness  and  decay, 

60,  61. 
Athol,  incorporation  of  town  of,  111. 
formerly  called  Pequoig,  112. 
maintained  a  garrison  against  the  In- 
dians, 112. 
mentioned,  114. 
Atlantic  Ocean,  electric  current  established 
from,  to  the  Pacific,  52. 

13acox,  Lord  Francis,  35,  226. 

the  benefit  of  his  works  to  us,  51. 

his   rising  contemporaneous  with   the 

birth  of  American  nationality,  51. 
the  change  worked  by,  in  the  mechan- 
ical pursuits,  14.3-146. 
Ball,  Thomas,  sculptor,  148. 
Baltimore.  Republican  Convention  at,  67. 
citizen  of,  message  to  people  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 68. 


Baltimore,  platform  of,  compared  with  that 

of  Chicago,  09. 
Bancroft,    George,    historian    of     United 

States,  163,  229. 
Barbauld,  Lictitia,  governess  of  Lord  Den- 
man,  273. 
Barre,  Louis,  a  French  litterateur,  239. 
Barton,    Bezaleel,    Revolutionary   soldier, 

124. 
Barton,  Samuel,  Revolutionary  soldier,  412. 
Batcheller.  Dr.,  of  Royalston,  Mass.,  127. 
Bavard,  James  A.,  an  American  statesman, 

292. 
Beaconsfield,    Lord,    quoted    on   death   of 

Abraham  Lincoln,  340. 
Beckwith,  Lieutenant,  killed  at  Chantillv, 

42. 
Belknap,  Dr.  Jeremy,  concerning  slavery 

in  Massachusetts,  32G,  327. 
Bellarmine,  Roberto,  an  Italian  cardinal, 

316. 
Bemis,  Lieutenant,  killed  at  Chantillv,  42. 
Bennington,  town  of,  mentioned,  123. 
Berkeley,  Bishop  Richard,  the  lyric  proph- 
ecy of,  52. 
the  song  of,  199. 
coming  to  Rhode  Island,  231. 
Bigelow,  Col.  Timothy,  monument  to,  205, 

note. 
Bill  of  Rights,  the,  for  Massachusetts,  311, 
313. 
the  twelfth  article  of,  315. 
concerning  the  subject  of  religion,  316. 
Binney,  Amos,  American  naturalist,  report 

"of,  324. 
Blake,  George,  member  of  Convention  of 

1820,  329. 
Bland,  William,  English  writer,  mentioned, 

237. 
Blind,  number  of,  in  Great  Britain,  251. 
Dr.  Howe's  services  concerning  educa- 
tion of,  252. 
Bolingbroke,  Viscount,  as  a  statesman,  94. 
Bonds,  Confederate,  the  value  of,  3. 
Bonds,  government,  an  appeal  concerning, 

3.4. 
Booth,  Wilkes,  retribution  of,  106. 
assa.ssination  of  Lincoln,  347. 
Boston  and  Lowell,  the  l>uilding  of,  134. 
Bowdoin,  Gov.  James,  mentioned,  309. 
intrusted  with  framing  of  the  Consti- 
tution of  Massachusetts,  310. 
eulogy  on,  quoted,  310. 
service  of,  during  Sliay's  rebellion,  328. 
Bowles,  Samuel,  mentioned,  161. 


INDEX. 


353 


Boynton,  Mr.,  first  donor  to  Soc.  of  In- 
dustrial Science  at  Worcester,  187. 
Brattle  Street  Meeting-house,  the,  32i. 
British  Empire,  her  drum-beat  heard  around 

the  globe,  54. 
Brougham,  Lord  Henry,  mentioned,  138. 
Brown,  John,  of  Ossawatomie,  mentioned, 

59. 
Buchanan,  James,  in  office  as  President,  87. 

concerning  State  sovereignty',  167. 
Bullock,  Alexander  H.,  a  delegate  to  Con- 
vention at  Baltimore,  07. 
eulogy  on  Abraham  I^incoln,  delivered 

at  Worcester  by,  7G. 
address  at  the  hundredth  anniversary 

of  town  ot  Royalston,  108. 
in  Paris  with  Charles  Sumner,  241. 
at  dinner,   given  to    General   Dix   at 

Paris,  195. 
at  grave  of  Aaron  Burr,  244. 
in  New  York  when  a  boy,  287. 
of  Royalston,  127. 
Bull  Run  2d,  mentioned,  40. 
"Bunch  of  Grapes  Tavern"  at  Royalston, 

115. 
Bunker  Hill,  the  drums  beat  there,  120. 

mentioned,  123. 
Bunyan,  John,  51. 
Burbank,    Eleazer,    revolutionary   soldier, 

124. 
Burke,  Edmund,  at  Beaconsfield,  181. 
mentioned,  12,  35,  49,  239. 
agent  of  New  York  in  England,  238. 
quoted,  28,  72,  138,  257. 
Burlingame,  Anson,  mentioned,  199. 
Burnside,  Gen    Ambrose  Everett,  43. 
Burr,  Aai-on,  the  grave  of,  244. 
Butler,  Gen.  Benjamin  F.,  incident  related 

by,  149. 
Byron,    Lord,   concerning    Greek    revolu- 
tion, 250. 

Oable,    the   laying  of,    between  Europe 

and  Ui  ited  States,  197. 
Cabot,  George,  an  American  senator,  men- 
tioned, 292,  309. 
Cairo,  city  of,  8. 

Calhoun,   John   C,    his   influence   in   the 
South,  63. 
HIS  war,  63. 

the  scholar  of  the  South,  63. 
tribute  to,  64. 

concerning  the  school  of  secession,  167, 
168. 


Calhoun,  John  C,  concerning  slavery,  169. 
the  master  of  his  school,  245. 

Calhoun,  Mr.,  trustee  of  Amherst  College, 
160. 

California,  Arizona,  and  Nevada,  199. 

Camden,  battle  of,  mentioned,  40. 

Camden,  Earl  of,  English  judge,  239. 

Cameron,  Simon,  mentioned,  102. 

Campbell,  Gen.  William  B.,  mentioned,  104. 

Canning,  George,  English  statesman,  49. 
concerning  abolition  of  slavery,  104. 

Cape  Cod,  the  cable  landed  at,  197. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  criticises  condition  of  our 
country,  141. 
quoted,  236. 

Carolina,  state  of,  mentioned,  126. 

Carroll,  Charles,  mentioned,  292. 

Celtic,  Teutonic,  and  Yankee  blood,  8. 

Centennial  situation  ol  woman,  the,  address 
delivered  at  Mt.  Holyoke  Seminary, 
258. 

Centennial  of  the  Massachusetts  Constitu- 
tion, address  on,  298. 

Chandler,  Mr.,  one  of  the  first  proprietors 
of  Royalston,  Mass.,  122. 

Channing,  William  Ellerj',  memory  of,  im- 
perishable, 231. 

Chantilly,  death  of  Union  soldiers  at,  42. 
mentioned,  40,  43. 

Charlestown,  army  gathered  in,  124. 

Chase,  Roger,  soldier  of  the  Revolution, 
124. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  instance  of  Lincoln's 
magnanimity  to,  103. 

Chatham,  Lord,  49,  237,  239. 
as  a  statesman,  94. 

concerning   the    inhabitants    of   New 
England,  204. 

Chesapeake  Bay,  tiie,  3. 

Chesney's  "Essays  in  Military  Biogra- 
phy "  quoted,  207. 

Chicago  platform,  compared  with  that  of 
Baltimore,  69. 

Chief  Justice  of  New  England,  227. 

Choate,  Rufus,  eloquence  of,  82. 

quoted  concerning  Hamilton,  291. 
quoted,  314. 

Choiseul,  Madame  de,  letters  of,  268. 

Cicero,  quoted,  34,  58.  * 

influence  of,  61. 

Civil  life,  cultivated  minds  take  the  lead 
in,  235. 

Civil  war,  in  the  midst  of,  6. 

Clark, ,    member    of    Massachusetts 

Twenty -first  Regiment,  43. 


23 


354 


INDEX, 


Clarke,  John,  one  of  the  founders  of  Rhode 

Island,  255. 
Clay,   Henry,  concerning    nomination    of 
Lincoln,  86. 
in  President  Lincoln's  place,  88. 
concerning  slavery,  IGt),  170. 
Clevenger,  Sliohal  L.  Vail,  American  sculp- 
tor, 148. 
Cobden,  Richard,  quotation  concerning,  98. 
Coke,  Lord,  mentioned,  226. 

quoted,  .314. 
Cold  Harbor,  battle  at,  126. 
Colonial  period  of  America,  53. 
Columbus,   Christopher,   America  has  in- 
terpreted tlie  dream  of,  52. 
Commencement  Day  at  Amherst  College, 

30. 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  duty  of 

the  people  towards,  9. 
Comparative  Zoology,  JMuseum  of,  324. 
Compromise,  what  it  means,  in  the  national 
struggle,  57,  58. 

Cond^, ,  incident  concerning  Marshal 

Turenne,  209. 
Confederacy,  the  people  of  the,  3. 
Confederate  bonds,  the  value  of,  3. 
Confederate  States,  the  republic  of,  6. 
Confederation,  the,  G. 

articles  of,  concerning  the,  165. 
Connecticut,  State  of,  2. 

concerning  a  constitution  for,  308. 
Constitution,  a  written,  concerning  our  na- 
tion, 165. 
a  written,  in  Virginia,  303. 
the,  the  framing  of,  140,  166. 
the  interpretation  of,  244. 
Hamilton's  part  in  framing,  293. 
adoption   of    the,    m   Masssachusetts, 

304-306. 
of  Massachusetts,  amendments  to,  330- 

340. 
concerning  the  revisal  of,  340. 
Constitutional  Convention,  the,  56. 
Continental  Congress,  the,  56. 
Convention  of  1787,  the,  243. 

of  1780,  provisions  of,  329. 
Cooper,  Dr.  Samuel,  learning  of,  234. 

inaugural  sermon  preached  by,  325. 
Corning,    Erastus,    letter    of    Lincoln    to, 

101. 
Cotton,  John,  226. 

Crompton,  Samuel,  English  artisan,  19. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  89,  229. 
Crown  Point,  service  of  Capt.  John  Fry  at, 
120. 


Czar  of  Russia,  what  America  has  done  for, 
52. 
his  friendship  to  our  country,  99. 
assassination  of,  348. 
Cushing,  Thomas,  American  patriot,  men- 
tioned, 309. 
Cushing.  Chief  .Justice  William,  327. 
Cutting,  Silas,  Revolutionary  soldier,  124. 

Davis,    Esquire,    Revolutionary  soldier, 
124. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  his  attempts  at  compro- 
mise, 57. 

Deane,    Charles,    of    Historical    Society, 
315. 

Death,  in  defence  of  one's  country,  5. 

Declaration  of    Independence,  concerning 
the,  165. 
the  adoption  of,  in  the  different  States, 
.301-306. 

Decree  of  Emancipation,  the,  96. 

Detfand,  Madame  de,  letters  of,  268. 

Delaware,  State  of,  concerning  the  Consti- 
tution, 166. 

Denman,  Lord,  and  Mrs.  Barbauld,  272. 

Descartes,   the    revolutionist    philosopher, 
228,  230. 

"  Deserted  Village,"  quotation  from,  129. 

Dewey,  Chester,  report  of,  324. 

Dickens,  Charles,  reminiscences  of,  253. 

Dickinson,     John,    American    statesman, 
culture  of,  235. 

Dix,  Dorothea,  mentioned,  273. 

Dix,  Gen.  John  A.,  speech  at  dinner  given 
to,  at  Paris,  195. 
retirement  from  official  life,  195. 

Dixwell,   John,    English   refugee    at  New 
Haven,  229. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  mentioned,  2,  8,  10, 
quoted,  70. 

Doane,  Falls  of,  at  Royalston,  115. 

Drury's  Bluff,  battle  at,  126. 

Dwight,  ,  monument  of,   mentioned, 

255. 


JliDGEWORTH,  Maria,  mentioned,  273. 
Educated  man,  the  relations  of  the,  with 
American  nationality,  45. 
the  duty  of  the,  .59. 
no  bounds  to  his  influence,  64. 
Educational  period  of  America,  the,  233. 
Edward    HI     "  father    of    English    com- 
merce," 135. 


INDEX. 


355 


Edwards,  Jonathan,  mentioned,  234. 
Eighteenth  amendment  to  tlie  Constitution 

of  Massachusetts,  335. 
Election  of  Sheriffs,   etc.,  concerning  the, 

336. 
Electric  current,  America  has  established 

the,  52. 
Eleventh    amendment    of    Massachusetts 

Constitution,  337. 
Ellis,  Kev.  Dr.,   quoted  concerning   Gov- 
ernor Lincoln,  180. 
Emancipation  of  the  slaves,  concerning  the, 

94,  95. 
Emerson,  George  B.,  report  of,  324. 
Emigration,  European,  to  this  land,  231. 
Emmet  Guards,  the,  of  Worcester,  206. 
Emmons,  Ebenezer,  report  of,  324. 
Endicott,  John,  mentioned,  226. 
his  coming  to  America,  232. 
Enfranchisement,    right    of   all    men    to, 

168. 
England,  cost  of  her  war  ■with  Xapoleon, 

11. 
her  war  debt  from  1803  to  1815, 11,  13. 
and  America,  public  interest  in  their 

histor}-,  48. 
the    confusion    between  its   past  and 

present  history,  50. 
extent  of  her  authority,  113. 
English  capitalists  invest  in  Massachusetts 

bonds,  21. 
English  loan,  the,  13. 
English  orators,  the,  239. 
English  traveller,  quoted,  148. 
Espinasse,  Mdlle.  de  1',  letters  of,  268. 
Estabrook,  Esquire  Joseph,  postmaster  at 

Royalston,  127. 
Eulogj'  on  Abraham  Lincoln,  delivered  at 

Worcester,  76. 
Everett,  Edward,  influence  of,  61. 
patriotism  of,  67. 
at  Gettysburg,  100. 

r  AiTH,  governs  the  conduct  of  States, 
60. 

Falls,  of  Forbes  and  Doane  at  Rovalston, 
115. 

Faneuil  Hall,  reception  of  Twenty-fifth 
Massachusetts  Regiment  in,  154. 

Father  of  Waters,  Mississippi  River,  54. 

Federal  authority,  acknowledgment  of, 
168. 

Federal  government,  how  its  re-establish- 
ment will  affect  the  public  debt,  16. 


Female  education  in  America,  268. 
Filmer,  Sir  Robert,  English  political  writer, 

316. 
Finance  Committee  of  Massachusetts,  27. 
Financial  condition  of  Massachusetts  con- 
sidered, 26,  27. 
First  Congregational  Society  of  Rovalston, 

116. 
Fisher  tS:  Brooks,  mentioned,  251. 
Flag,  the,  to  be  upheld  and  protected,  3. 
presentation  of    a,    to    Massachusetts 

Twenty-first  Regiment,  40. 
apostrophe  to  the  flag  of  the  Twenty- 
first  Massachusetts  Regiment,  43. 
Lincoln's    determination    concerning, 

73. 
American,  the  blow  struck  at,  205. 
Flanders,  woollen  manufactures  in,  134. 
Forbes,  Falls  of,  at  Royalston,  115. 
Fort  Sumter,  2. 
Fourteenth  amendment  to  Constitution  of 

Massachusetts,  335. 
Fourth  of  July,  oration  delivered  at  Spring- 
field, 1867,  162. 
Fox,  Charles  James,  English  orator,  239. 
devotion  to  liberty,  248. 
mentioned,  289. 
France,  the  confusion  between  its  past  and 
present  history,  50. 
concerning  her  power,  163. 
our  indebtedness  to,  239. 
in  the  year  1763,  240. 
France  and  United  States,  the  friendship 

between,  196. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  49. 

at  the  Constitutional  Convention,  56. 

wisdom  of,  235. 

in  London,  238. 

at  Versailles,  241. 

quoted  concerning  women  in  politics, 

281. 
letter  to  Richard  Price,  quoted,  338. 
prediction  of,  340. 
Frazer,  Captain,  killed  at  Chantilly,  42. 
Fredericksburg,  mentioned,  40,  43. 
Freeman,   Isaac,  a    purchaser   in  town  of 

Royalston,  113. 
Fremont,  John  C,  mentioned,  3. 
French,  Michael,  soldier  of  the  Revolution, 

124. 
French  war  of  1756,  effect  of,  in  Massachu- 
setts, 117. 
French,  the,  coming  to  America,  53. 
Fn,',  John,  biographical  sketch  of,  119. 
selectman  at  Royalston,  119. 


356 


INDEX. 


Fry,  John,  concerning  the  ne^v  church  at 

Koyalston,  121. 
Fry,  Elizabeth,  mentioned,  273. 

Cjadsden,  Christopher,  American  patriot, 
mentioned,  237. 

Gage,  Tliomas,  a  British  general  at  Salem 
in  1744,  300. 

Gale,  Isaac,  erected  first  mill  at  Royalston, 
119. 

Galileo,  pioneer  in  revolt  of  science,  228. 

Gambetta,  anecdote  of,  241. 

Ganges  Mountains,  American  influence  ex- 
tends to,  52. 

Garfield,  James  A.,  death  of,  344. 

address   at  memorial   observances   at 
Worcester,  344. 

General  Court,  concerning  the,  in  Massa- 
chusetts, 321. 

Genius  and  art,  what  America  has  done 
for.  52. 

Geologist,  the,  of  Massachusetts,  115. 

Gerard,   Balthasar,  a  Catholic  fanatic,  as- 
sassinator of  William  the  Silent,  340. 

Gerry,  town  of,  former  name  of  Philipstou, 
114. 

God,  providence  of,  5. 

Goffe  and  Whalley,  regicides,  229. 

Gorham,  ,  American  patriot,  men- 
tioned, 309. 

Gould,  John,  English  naturalist,  report  of, 
324. 

Government,  the,  in  peril,  2,  3. 

plan  of,  for  the  Constitution,  316. 

Government  bonds,  concerning  investment 
in,  3,  4. 

Governor  of  Massachusetts,  John  A.  An- 
drew, 8. 

Grant,  Ulysses,  mentioned,  57,  89. 

Gray,  Chief  Justice,  concerning  slavery, 
327. 

Gray,  Francis  C,  concerning  the  liberties 
of  early  settlers  of  Massachusetts, 
299. 

Great  Britain,  concerning  taxation  in,  17. 
if  the  Union  were  broken,  49. 
the  war  of  1812  with,  125. 

Greece,  the  mind  of,  surviving  to  the  pres- 
ent day,  34. 
no  public  interest  in  her  history  as 
compared  with  England  or  America, 
48. 
Struggle  of  her  provinces  for  union, 
53. 


Greeley,  Horace,  mentioned,  96. 
Gregory,  Major-General  Franklin,  of  Roy- 
alston, 127. 
Green,  Nahum,  his   grave   at  Royalston, 
124. 
Revolutionary  soldier,  124. 
served  at  Bunker  Hill,  124. 
delegate  to  Provincial  Congress,  124. 
Greek  orator  quoteil,  05. 
Grcnville,    Hon.    George,    English   states- 
man, 239. 
Grote,  mentioned,  48. 
Grotius,  "chief  of  men,"  228. 

XJALE,  Sir  ^latthew,  mentioned,  226. 
Hale,   Nathan,   member  of  Convention  of 
1820,  329. 
concerning  the  record  of  the  Conven- 
tion of  1820,  329. 
Hallam,  concerning  woollen  manufactures, 

134. 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  12,  49,  61,  62. 
concerning  public  credit,  15. 
Treasury  papers  prepared  by,  62. 
portraj-ed,  62. 
tribute  to,  64. 

concerning  his  education,  101. 
policy  of.  125. 

concerning  the  framing  of  the  Consti- 
tution, 140,  141,  166. 
at  the  Convention  of  1787,  243. 
address    at    unveiling    of    statue    of, 

287. 
monument  of,   on  Wall   Street,  New 

York,  287. 
monument  of,  in  Boston,  287. 
sketch  of  his  career,  288,  289. 
grief  at  death  of,  289. 
his  part  in  the  Constitution,  293. 
author  of  The  Federalist.  293. 
the    father    of    Nationalism     against 

Statism,  295. 
concerning  the  public  treasury,  296. 
Hampden,  John,  mentioned,  226,  229. 
Hancock,  John,  owned  land  at  Royalston, 
115,  119. 
mentioned,  122. 
message  of,  to  Legislature,  323. 
^       elected    governor    of    Massachusetts, 

325. 
Hancock,  IVIrs.,  wife    of  Governor    Han- 
cock, 280. 
Hapgood,  Mr.,  land  grant  at  Royalston, 
113. 


INDEX. 


357 


Harris,  Dr.  Thaddeus  William,  entomolo- 
gist, report  of,  324. 

Harrison,  President,  mentioned,  289. 

Harvard   University,  the  professorship  of 
law  at,  a  gift  of  Isaac  Koyal,  110. 
new  departments  opened,  132. 

Hawkes,    ,  member  of  Massachusetts 

Twentj'-first  Regiment,  •13. 

Hayne,  Robert  Y.,  concerning  the  school 
of  secession,  167,  108. 

Herodotus,  mentioned,  48. 

Herscliel,  Caroline,  astronomer,  273. 

Hill,    Lieutenant,     killed    at    Chantilly, 
42. 

His   E.Kcellency  Gov.   John   A.   Andrew, 
251. 

Hitchcock,  Dr.  Edward,  32. 

third  president  of   Amherst  College, 

158. 
a  tribute  to,  158. 
work  of,  on  geological  survey,  324. 

Hoar,  Samuel,    member  of  Convention  of 
1820,  32D. 
concerning  taxation,  340. 

Holbrook,    Lieutenant,    death    of,  at  An- 
tiet;\m,  41. 

Holland,  how  she  paid  her  debt,  27. 

Holt,  Sir  John,  English  judge,  8. 

Hooker,  Rev.  Thomas,  settled  in  Connecti- 
cut, 220. 

Hooper, ,  donation  to  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, 132. 

Hortensins,  mentioned,  35. 

Hosmer,  Haniet,  sculptor,  148. 

House  of  Representatives,  Massachusetts, 
address  in  the,  9. 

Howard,  John,  quotation  concerning,  257. 

Howe,    Dr.    Samuel    G.,   address    on   the 
character  of,  248. 
title  of  philanthropist  applied  to,  249. 
in  the  Greek  revolution,  249,  250. 
services  of,  in  education  of  the  blind, 

252,  253. 
review  of  his  life,  256,  265. 
mentioned,  323. 

Hubbard, ,  member  of  Convention  of 

182t),  329. 

Hubbard,  Thomas,  a  purchaser  in  town  of 
Royalston,  113. 

Huguenots,  settling  in  America,  53. 

Humphrey,  Rev.  Edward,  158. 

Humphrey,  Hon.  James,  30. 
death  of,  158. 

Humphrey,  Dr.  Heman,  president  of  Am- 
herst College,  157. 


Hunt,  IMr.,  land  granted  to,  in  Royalston, 

114. 
Huskisson,   William,    English   statesman, 

mentioned,  138. 

Independence  Hall,  at  Baltimore,  77. 

Industrial  Science,  address  before  Society 
of,  at  Worcester,  187. 
school  of,  dedicated  at  Worcester,  192. 

Institute  of  Technology,  Boston,  189. 

Intellectual  element  of  our  ancestors,  223. 

Intellectual  leaders,  names  of,  220. 

Intellectual  leadership  in  American  his- 
tory, address  delivered  at  Provi- 
dence, 222. 

Italy,  concerning  her  provinces,  53. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  mentioned,  2,  6. 

in  President  Lincoln's  place,  88. 

concerning  slavery,  109. 

member  of  Convention  of  1820,  329. 
Jacobs,  Nathaniel,  Revolutionary  soldier, 
124. 

served  in  Rhode  Island,  124. 
Jameson,  Mrs.  Anna,  English  writer,  273. 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  mentioned,  29,  49. 

intellectual  influence  of,  02. 

concerning  nomination  of  Lincoln,  86. 

concerning  State  sovereignty,  166. 

chivalry  of,  237. 

at  Paris,  241. 
Jonson,  Ben,  mentioned,  229. 

Keats,  John,  English  poet,  his  "Endy- 
mion  "  reversed  and  reproduced,  33. 

Kellogg  (Mr.),  of  Pittsiield,  of  alumni  of 
Amherst  College,  157. 

Kelton,  Captain,  killed  at  Chantilly,  42. 

Kent,  Chancellor,  mentioned,  294. 

Ketchimi,  William,  mentioned,  141. 

Knoxville,  mentioned,  40,  43. 

Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  mentioned,  127, 
241. 
friendship  of,  for  Hamilton,  289. 

Latin  quotation,  10. 

Laurens,  John,  American  soldier,  men- 
tioned, 289. 

Lawrence,  Abbott,  incident  concerning, 
188. 

Lawrence,  Abbott,  gift  to  Scientific  School, 
Cambridge,  188. 


358 


INDEX. 


Lawrence,  Amo?,  mentioned,  132. 
Lancaster,  town  of,  111. 
Lawrence  and  Tully  rivers,  115. 
Leaders,  tiu- early,  in  America,  232-2.3.3. 
Lee,  Artliiir  and  Ciiarlus,    mentioned,  Gl, 

2;j7. 
Lee,  Kev.  Josepli,  called  to  settle  at  R03-- 

alston,  121. 
legacy  of  Josiaii  Quincv  to  his  infant  son, 

'50. 
Legislature   concerning    grant  to     female 

college,  270. 
Letters  of  Madame  Sdvigne,   and  others, 

2G8. 
Lexington   on    the    19th   of    April,    1775, 

204. 
Libby,  war  prisoners  at,  126. 
Light  Infantry  of  Worcester,  206. 
Lincoln,  Aln-aham,  mentioned,  2. 
the  patriotic  IVesideut,  7. 
proclamation  of  freedom  by,  59. 
nominated  to  presidency,  70. 
events  of  his  admmistration,  71,  72. 
determination  concerning  the  flag,  73. 
his  prosecution  of  the  war,  73. 
the  best  man  for  President,  73. 
the  power  of  his  proclamations,  73. 
eulogy  on,  delivered  at  Worcester,  76. 
his  funeral  pageantry  compared   with 
that  of  Jacob,  the  Hebrew  patriarch, 
76,  77. 
the  passing  of  his  funeral   procession 

through  principal  cities,  77,  78. 
his  qualities  of  character  and  service, 

78. 
hisj'outh,  79. 

compared  with  Napoleon  and  Wash- 
ington, 79. 
his  second  inaugural,  79. 
his  library,  79,  80. 
his  service  in  the  cause  of  freedom,  83, 

84. 
the  supposed  vision  of  his  future  great- 
ness, 81. 
period  of  his  life  from  1837  to  1858, 

81. 
as  a  lawyer,  81,  82. 
as  a  member  of  Congress,  82. 
speech  before  convention  at  Worcester, 

82. 
competitor  of  Douglas   as   senator   to 

Congress,  83. 
quoted,  83. 

as  supercar£(o  on  a  flatboat,  80. 
nominated  tor  Tresident,  85. 


Lincoln,  Abraham,  acceptance  of  his  nomi- 
nation for  President,  86. 
election  as  President,  86. 
assuming    the    reins  of    government, 

87. 
as  director  of  the  army,  89,  90. 
his  war  course  criticised  by  the  ancient 

countries,  88,  89. 
message  concerning  entrance  into  Rich- 
mond, 90. 
his  message  of  July,  1862,  92. 
assumes  all  responsibility  of  his  mili- 
tary administration,  92,  93. 
concerning  the    emancipation   of    the 

slaves,  94,  95. 
how  influenced  by  public  opinion,  97, 

98. 
his  speech  not  unworthv  of  his  action, 

99. 
his  messages,  100,  101. 
speech  at  Gettysburg,  100. 
his  self-education,  101. 
letter  to  Erastus  Corning,  101. 
magnanimity  of,  102. 
moral  and  humane  qualities  of,  102. 
his  belief  in  God,  103. 
instance  of  his  magnanimity  to  Chase, 

103. 
last  consultation  with  his  cabinet,  104. 
his  fame  outlives  him,  105. 
Restorer  and  Liberator,  107. 
compared  with  Washington,  172,  173. 
in  the  war  of  the  Rebellion,  172,  173. 
Seward,  Grant,  and    Sherman,    com- 
pared with,  173. 
mentioned,  309. 

member  of  Convention  of  1780,  327, 
329. 
Lincoln,  Gov.    Levi,   address    in   memory 
of,  at  Worcester,  176. 
resolutions  on  death  of,  176. 
founder    of    Agricultural    Society    of 

Worcester,  176,  177. 
presiding  at  the  agricultural  show,  178, 

179. 
love  of  nature,  182,  183. 
in  his  old  age,  184,  185. 
death  of,  185. 

debate  of,  concerning  election  in  Massa- 
chusetts, 334. 
Literature,  the   encouragement  of,  in  the 
Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  321, 
322. 
Liverpool,  city  of,  22. 
Locke,  John,  the  philosopher,  227,  316. 


INDEX. 


359 


London,  city  of,  22. 

Lord,  Otis  P.,  of  Salem,  of  alumni  of  Am- 
herst College,  157. 

Lord  and  Saviour,  our,  4. 

Lost  arts,  traces  of  the,  134. 

Lowell,  Judge  Jdlin,  eulogy  of,  on  Gov- 
ernor Buwdoin,  310. 

Lowell,  John,  American  statesman,  mem- 
ber of  Convention  of  1780,  309. 

Lunatic  Asylum,  the  State,  255. 

Lyman,  ,  monument  of,  255. 

Lyon,  Nathaniel,  American  general,  men- 
tioned, 3. 

M.ACAULAY,  Lord,  quoted,  13. 

mentioned,  100,  229. 
McClellan,  General  George  B.,  mentioned, 
3,  102. 
commander  of  Union  army,  90. 
at  Malvern  Hill,  172. 
McDowell,    Gen.     L'win,    at     Bull    Run, 

172. 
Machinery,  concerning  the  use  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 190. 
Macintosh,  Sir  James,  mentioned,  248. 
Madison,  James,  0,  49. 

at  the  Constitutional  Convention,  56, 

61. 
concerning  State  sovereignty,  166, 167. 
concerning   the  framing  of  Constitu- 
tion, IGG. 
concerning  slaver}',  168,  169. 
at  the  convention  of  Virginia,  243. 

Magi,     ,    member    of      Massachusetts 

Twenty-first  Regiment,  43. 
Maine,  set  off  as  a  separate  State,  329. 
Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Liverpool,  their 

controlling  influence,  138. 
Mann,  Horace,  concerning  the  State  luna- 
tic hospital,  255. 
mentioned,  323. 
Mansfield,  Lord,  mentioned,  239. 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  mentioned,  89. 
Marvin,  A.  P.,  "  Worcester  in  the  War" 

written  by,  206,  note. 
IMaryland  from  its  outset,  226. 
Mason,  George,  framer  of  Constitution  of 
Virginia^  313. 

concerning    religion    in    the    Bill    of 
Rights,  316. 
Massachusetts  and  the  War  Tax,  speech  on, 
9. 
State  valuation  returns  in  1860,  17. 
her  proportion  of  the  war  debt,  17. 


Massachusetts,  valuation   returns  as   com- 
pared with  those  of  New  York,  18. 

her  tax  during  the  Revolution,  18, 19. 

her  productive  forces   in   1814,  com- 
pared with  those  of  1860,  19,20. 

increase  in  her  valuation  returns,  20. 

establishment  of  statistical  returns  in, 
20. 

her  industries  as  compared  with  those 
of  Virginia,  22. 

statistics  of  her  industries  for  1855,  21, 
22. 

consideration  of  her  war  tax,  24,  25. 

condition  of    her  finances  considered 
26,  27. 

credit  of,  how  regarded,  27. 

effect  of  French  war  of  1756  in,  117. 

Charitable   Mechanic  Association,  ad- 
dress delivered  before  the,  131. 

concerning  the  framing  of  the  Consti- 
tution, 140. 

the  product  of  industries  in,  191. 

a  commission  of  the  early  settlers  In, 
298. 

under  Charles  L,  300. 

under  Cromwell,  300. 

under  George  HL,  300. 

under  the  charter  government,  300. 

the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  in, 
304. 

the   framing  of  the   Constitution   in, 
309. 

action   of,    during   Shay's    Rebellion, 
327. 
Mather,  Cotton,  mentioned,  234. 
Mayhew,  Jonathan,  mentioned,  235. 
Meade,  Richard  Kidder,  Revolutionary  sol- 
dier, mentioned,  289. 
Mechanic   Arts   with    Libert}'  and    Social 
Progress,    relations    of,   considered, 
132.' 

during  the  Middle  Ages,  133. 

the   victories    of,    over  feudalism  in 
Great  Britain,  137. 

growth  of,  in  New  England,  138. 

the  progress  of,  in  New  England,  led 
to  the  struggle  for  liberty,  139. 

the  sentiment  and  poetry  of,  147,  148. 

progress  in,  131. 
Mechanical  utility,  want  of,  during  feudal 

period,  142. 
Mechanical  wonders  of  Nineveh,  Babylon. 

&c.,  134. 
Mechanics    and    Commerce,     spread     of, 
through  England  and  Europe,  135. 


360 


INDEX. 


Jfpchanics'  Hal],  Worcester,  1. 

Mectianics  of  Massachusetts  in  the  war  of 
the  Rebellion,  149. 

Medford,   the  estate   of   the    Hon.    Isaac 
Royal  at,  IIG. 

Meeting  of   alumni  at   Amherst   College, 
address  at,  15G. 

Meetinfj-house   at   Royalston,    history  of, 
120. 

Mexico,  pitiable-condition  of,  1G3. 

Middle  Ages,  progress    of    mechanic    arts 
during  the,  133. 

Military  power  in  Europe,  229. 

Miller's  River,  mentioned,  115. 

5Iillses,  the,  Bateses,  the,  and  Aliens,  the, 
mentioned,  177. 

Milton,  blindness  of,  253. 
mentioned,  29,  35. 
quoted.  155,  225. 

Mississippi  River.  3,  46. 

the  inland  Nile  of  America.  52. 

Monadnockand  Wachusett  mountains,  183. 

Money,  an  urgent  appeal  for,  for  war  pur- 
poses. 4. 

Monroe,  .lames,  concerning  slavery,  169. 

Monument  at  AVorcester  for  fallen  soldiers, 
an  appeal  for,  152. 
what  it  should  be,  155. 

Monument  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  287. 

Monumental  City,  the,  receives   the  body 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,  77. 

Monuments,   the  building   of,   an   ancient 
custom,  151. 

Moore,  Benoni,  land  granted  to,  in  Royals- 
ton,  114. 

Moore,  Zephaniah  Swift,  first  president  of 
Amherst  College,  157. 

More,  Hannah,  273. 

Morris,  Robert,   statesman   and   financier, 
mentioned,  290,  •292. 

Motley,  .lohii  Lothrop,  quoted,  105. 

Mount  Ilolyoke,  31. 

Mount  Holyoke  Seminary,  address  deliv- 
ered "at,  258. 

Mount  Tom  and  Sugar  Loaf,  31. 

Museum    of  Comparative   Zoology,    Cam- 
bridge, 188. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  11. 

the  genius  of,  79. 
military  power  of,  229. 
Nation,  a,  what  it  comprehends,  46. 

value  of  a,  without  a  common  chord. 
46. 


Nation,   continental  geography  its    hand- 
maid, 46. 
without  Government,  47. 
organism  of  a,  what  it  means,  47. 
the  fall  of  a,  47. 

its  life  the  treasury  of  histories,  47. 
its  fate  when  it  loses  historical  con- 
nections, 48. 
National  crisis,  concerning  the,   Oct.    14, 

1861,1. 
National  debt  incurred  by  the  war,  12. 

concerning  the  payment  of,  16. 
National  independency,  the  dawn  of,  237. 
National   unitv,  the  dutv  of  maintaining, 

58. 
Nationality,  comprehends  country  and  na- 
tional life,  46. 
a,  extinguished,  48. 
Natural  Historv,  Massachusetts  interest  in, 
.324. 
Society  of,  endowment  of,  324. 
Necker,  Jacques,  a  Swi-^s  tiuaneier,  62. 
Newbern  mentioned,  40,  43. 

death  of  Adjutant  Stearns  at,  41. 
battle  at,  126. 
New  Orleans,  city  of,  8,  22. 
New   York,  valuation    returns    compared 
with  Massachusetts,  18. 
funeral  honors  paid  to  Abraham   Lin- 
coln, 78. 
concerning  the  framing  of  the  Consti- 
tution, 140. 
Nichols,  Isaac,  Revolutionary  soldier,  124. 
Nightingale,  Florence,  284. 
Nineteenth  amendment   to   Massachusetts 
Constitution,    concerning    election    of 
sheriffs,  &c.,  336. 
Nineveh  and  Babylon,  mechanical  wonders 

of,  ].34. 
Ninth  amendment  to  Massachusetts  Con- 
stitution, 340. 
Noclie  triste  (the  sorrowful  night),  106. 
North,  Lord,  English  Tory  statesman,  239. 
North  Carolina,  3. 

Xullus  liber  homo,  quoted  by  Chatham, 
312. 

(^CTAVius,  compromi.«e  of,  with  Antony 
and  Lepidus,  57. 

One  Country,  One  Constitution,  One  Des- 
tiny, 6. 

O'Neil,  Ca]itain.of  Twenty-fifth  Massachu- 
setts Regiment,  death  of,  154. 

Orange,  town  of,  incorporation  of,  114. 


INDEX. 


361 


Otis,  James,  a  purchaser  in  town  of  Roy- 
alston,  1J;J,  114,  115,  119. 

mentioned,  119,  l'2-2. 
Otis,  Samuel,  eloquence  of,  235. 

mentioned,  292. 

Paixe,  Robert  Treat,  mentioned,  309. 

member  of  Convention  of  1780,  327. 
Paley,  Dr.,  quotation  from  his  "Political 

Philosopher,"  338. 
Palfrey,  Dr.  J.  G.,  quoted,  341. 
Panama,  the  yuldcn  gate  of,  52. 
"  Paradise    Lost,"  the   author  of,  journey 

into  Europe,  228. 
Parker,  Chief  Justice,  Isaac,  president  of 

Convention  of  1820,  329. 
Parker,    Chief    Justice    Joel,     concerning 

taxation,  330. 
Parker, ,  soldier  of  the  Rebellion  from 

Worcester,  153. 
Parsons,  Theophilus,  concerning  the  "Es- 
sex Result,"  307. 
mentioned,  309. 

quoted,  concerning  slavery,  326. 
Patent  Office,  records  of  the,  131. 
Patents,  number  of,  obtained  in  Worces- 
ter, 191. 
Peabodv,  W.  B.   0.,  report  of,  on  fishes, 

&c.,  324. 
Peace  with  the  Confederacy,  concerning,  7. 
sure  to  come,  28. 
the  only  terms  of,  59. 
Peekskill  mentioned,  205. 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  as  a  statesman,  94. 
Pellatt,  Sarah,  mentioned,  273. 
Pepperell,  Sir  William,  mentioned,  204. 
Pequoig,  former  name  of  Athol,  112. 
Perkins,  Rev. ,  minister  at  Royalston, 

127. 
Perkins,    Thomas   Handasyd,    concerning 

education  of  the  blind,  252,  255. 
Peyton,  — — ,  American  patriot,  mentioned, 

237. 
Phi  Beta    Kappa   Society  of  Brown  Uni- 

versit}',  address  before  the,  222. 
Philadelphia,  mentioned,  123. 
Philanthrophist,   title    of,    applied   to  Dr. 

Samuel  G.  Howe,  248,  249. 
Phillipstown,    formerly    town    of    Gerry, 

114. 
Pickard,  Mary,  mentioned,  273. 
Pickering,  Timothy,  mentioned,  177,  292. 
Pickett,  Colonel,  of  Twenty -Ninth  ]\Iassa- 

chusetts  Regiment,  addressed,  44. 


Pierpont,  ,  land  granted  to,  at  Royals- 
ton,  113. 
Pinckncy,  Cotesworth,  mentioned,  22. 
Pitt,    William,    mentioned,    49,    02,    137, 
289. 
quoted,  212. 
Pitt,  William,  Earl  of  Chatham,  the  elder, 

239. 
Platform  of  Baltimore  and  Chicago  com- 
pared, 09. 
Plato,  mentioned,  35. 

Plunkett,  Sergeant,  color-bearer  of  Twenty- 
first  Massachusetts  Regiment,  43. 
Plutarch,  mentioned,  48. 
Poetrv,  5,  29,  31,  30,  42,  149,  183, 186,  278, 
"285. 

Milton  quoted,  155. 
Portland  and  San  Francisco,  175. 
Powers,  Hiram,  American  sculptor,  148. 
Prescott,  William  Hickling,  contributor  to 
"  North  American  Review,"  251. 

Prescott,  ,  member  of  Convention   of 

1820,  329. 
President,  the,  Abraham  Lincoln,  7,  57. 
Priest,  one  of  the  first  settlers  in  Royals- 
ton,  Mass.,  113. 
land  granted  to,  at  Royalston,  113. 
his  loyalty  to    soldiers  of  the  French 
wars,  113. 
Priest's  River,  mentioned,  115. 
Proclamation   of     freedom    bj'    Abraham 

Lincoln,  59. 
Prophecy,  lyric,  of  Bishop  Berkeley,  52. 
Public  credit,  a  limit  to,  15. 

principle  of  Hamilton  concerning,  15. 
principle  of   Washington   concerning, 

15. 
concerning  the  establishment  of,  15. 
Puritans,  their  settlement  in  America,  53. 

CiuixcY,  Josiah,  his  legacy  to  his  infant 

son,  50. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  Jr.,  genius  of,  235. 

member  of  Convention  of  1820,  329. 

l\,AT,EiGn.  Sir  Walter,  memory  of,  in  Vir- 
ginia, 227. 
mentioned,  230. 
Randolph,  Peyton,  mentioned,  2-37. 

Ravaillac, ,  murderer   of    Henry  IV., 

346. 
Real  and  personal   property,   value  of,   in 
1860,  16. 


362 


INDEX, 


Rebellion,  object  of  the,  6. 
the  movers  of  the,  6. 
war  of  the,  conduet  of   tOTvn   of  Roy- 
alston  ill,  125,  126. 

Relations  of  the  Educated  man  with  Ameri- 
can Nationality,  address  on,  45. 

Religious  purposes,  concerning  taxation 
for,  339. 

Remarks  at  the  reception  of  Twenty-first 
Massachusetts  Regiment  at  Worces- 
ter, Feb.  3,  18G4,  40, 

Reno,  Major-General  Jesse  L.,  43. 

Republican  Convention  at  Baltimore,  G7. 
votes  of  the   delegation  of   Maryland 
at,  68.  » 

Republican  State  Convention  at  Worcester, 
speech  before,  6G. 

Resolutions  on  death  of  Levi  Lincoln,  of 
Worcester,  176. 

Revere,  Paul,  early  president  of  Massachu- 
setts Mechanics'  Association,  139. 
concerning  the  framing  of  the  Consti- 
tution, 140. 

Revisal  of  the  Constitution,  concerning 
the,  340. 

Revolution,  the,  6. 

from  what  it  grew,  139. 
war  of  the,  1G3. 

Revolutionary  period,  the,  of  America,  53. 

Rhode  Island,  concerning   the   framing  of 
the  Constitution,  140. 
under  its  charter  government,  308. 

Rice,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  killed  at   Chan- 
tilly,  42. 
tribute  to  the  memory  of,  42. 

Richardson,  Eliphalet,  Revolutionary'  sol- 
dier, 124. 

Richardson,  Timothy,  chosen  selectman  at 
Royalston,  119. 
concerning  the  new  church  at  Royals- 
ton,  121. 

Richmond,  counsels   at,  concerning  presi- 
dential candidate,  GG. 
concerning  McClellan's  entrance  into, 
90, 

Roanoke,  mentioned,  40,  43. 
battle  at,  120, 

Rogers,  John,  sculptor  of  soldiers'  monu- 
ment at  Worcester,  213. 

Roland,  Madame,  dving  invocation  of, 
285. 

Eomilly,  Sir  Samuel,  English  reformer, 
mentioned,  248. 

Rosecrans,  General  William  Stark,  men- 
tioned, 3. 


"Royal  Chase,"  first  boy  bom  in  Royals- 
ton,  116. 
Royal,  Isaac,  a  purchaser  in  town  of  Itov- 
alston,  113,  114,  115, 

founded  the  professorship   of  law   at 
Harvard  University,  IIG. 

concerning  his  estate  at  Medford,  116. 

biographical  sketch  of,  116. 

gave    .£25    toward   meeting-house  at 
Royalston,  116,  120. 

concerning  the  Revolution,  122. 
Royal-shire,   former  name    of   Royalston. 

112  115. 
Royalston,  town  of,  address   at   the   Hun- 
dredth Anniversary  of,  108. 

nothing  eventful  in  its  history,  109, 

the  founders  of.  110, 

paucity  of  its  annals.  109, 

the  junior  town  of  Worcester  Countv, 
lil, 

concerning  its  territory,  112, 

the  brief   interim  between  settlement 
and  municipalitj-,  112. 

first  purchasers  of  the  town,  113, 

land  granted  in,  to Hunt,  114, 

land    granted   in,    to   Benoni   Moore, 
114. 

its  soil,  natural  beauties,  &c.,  115, 

proprietors'  meetings  held  at,  115, 

land   owned    bv   John    Hancock,    in, 
115. 

named  for  Hon.  Isaac  Roj-al,  116. 

concerning  the  settlement  at,  117,  118, 
119. 

incorporation  of  the  town,  118. 

building  of    the   meeting-house,    118. 
120.  " 

selectmen  chosen  at,  119. 

taxing    the    lands    of    non-residents, 
119. 

Rev,  Joseph  Lee  settled  as  minister  at, 
121. 

patriotic  history  of,  122,  127, 

response  to  military  calls,  123. 

Revolutionary  soldiers  of,  124. 

conduct  of,during  war  of  the  Rebellion, 
12.-).  12G. 

prominent  men  of,  127, 

its  ]iopulation,  128. 

industries  of,  128, 
"  Royalston  Leg,"  part  of  town  of  Win- 
chondon,  112. 

set  off  to  Winchendon,  112,  114. 
Rutledgc,    John,    American    orator,    men- 
tioned, 237, 


INDEX. 


363 


St.  Lawrence  River,  48. 

Salisbury,    Stephen,   of    Worcester,   men- 
tioned, 187. 

Saltonstall,  Gurdon,  in  America,  232. 

Saltonstall,  Leverett,  member  of  Conven- 
tion of  1820,  329. 

Sanborn,  Frank,  mentioned,  253. 

Saratoga,  mentioned,  123. 
the'battle  of,  163. 

Sargeant,   Associate    Justice,    member  of 
Convention  of  1780,  327. 

Savage,  John,  member  of  Convention  of 
1820,  329. 

Scientific  School,  Cambridge,  188,  189. 

Scott,  Walter,  mentioned,  234. 

Sears,      Rev.     Dr.     Barnas,     mentioned, 
323. 

Searses,  Harvard  College  endowed  by  the, 
32. 

Secession  of  Southern  States,  86. 

Sedgwick,   Catharine    Maria,    mentioned, 
273. 

Sedgwick,     Theodore,    American     jurist, 
mentioned,  289. 

Sevign^,  Madame  de,  letters  of,  267. 

Sewall,  Associate  Justice,  member  of  Con- 
vention of  1780,  327. 

Shaftesbury,  Earl  of,  mentioned,  227. 

Shakespeare,  William,  35. 
at  the  tomb  of,  237. 

Shaw, ,  member  of  Convention  of  1820, 

329. 

Shaw,  Chief   Justice  Lemuel,    concerning 
slavery,  326. 

Shay's  Rebellion,  the,  in  1786,  327. 

Sheridan,  General  Philip  Henry,  89. 

Sherman,  General  William  T.,57,  89. 

Sherman,  Rogf^r,  mentioned,  289. 

Shirley,  William,  Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts in  1745,  120. 

Sibley,   Captain,    one    of   first  settlers   of 
"  Royalston,  119. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  English  author,  316. 

Slaverj",  the  national  struggle  concerning, 
57. 
George  Canning,  concerning  abolition 

of,  104. 
in  America,  166. 
its  existence   in   United  States,    169, 

170,  171. 
abolished  in  Massachusetts,  326,  327. 

Smith,  .John,  varied  fortunes  of,  2-30. 

Soldiers'  monument,  speech  at  dedication 
of,  at  Worcester,  202. 


Somers,  Barrister,  concerning   speech    of, 

100. 
South  Mountain,  mentioned,  40. 
Sovereignt}^  of  the  nation  over  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  States,  164. 
of  State's,  &c.,  216. 
Sparta  and  Athens,  the  history  of,  become 

fabulous,  48. 

Speech  at  a  war  meeting,  Oct.  14,  1861, 1. 

at  Worcester,  concerning  a  memorial 

to  fallen  soldiers  of  the  Rebellion, 

151. 

at  dinner  given  to    General   Dix    at 

Paris,  195. 
at  dedication  of  soldiers'  monument  at 
Worcester,  202. 
Sprague,    William,     Governor  of    Rhode 

Island,  4. 
Springfield,  sketch  of  early  history,  162. 
oration  delivered  at,  July  4, 18G7,  162. 
and  Omaha,  175. 
Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  mentioned,  102. 
State,  the,  older  than  the  nation,  59. 
State  governments,  concerning,  317,  318, 

316. 
Statism  the  bane  of  nationality,  56. 
Statistical    returns,    establishment    of,  in 
Massachusetts,  20. 
of  industries  of  JIassachusetts  for  1855, 
21,  22. 
Steams,  Adjutant,  death  of,  at  Newbem, 
41. 
tribute  to  the  memory  of,  42. 
Stearns,   Rev.  Dr.,  President  of  Amherst 

College,  159. 
Stephenson,    George,    inventor  and    engi- 
neer, 137. 
Stevens,    Thaddeus,    Chairman   of    Ways 

and  Means,  11. 
Stockwell,  Joel,  Revolutionary  soldier,  124. 
Storer,  Dr.,  report  of,  on  fishes,  &c.,  324. 
Story,  Joseph,  member  of  Convention  of 

1820,  329. 
Story,  William  Wetmore,  sculptor,  148. 
Strong,  Governor  Caleb,  policy  of,  125. 
mentioned,  177,  309. 
member  of  Convention  of  1780,  327. 
Suffrage  in  the  South,  concerning,  96. 

concerning  the  right  of,  in  Massachu- 
setts, 331. 
Sullivan,  Associate  Justice,  James,  mem- 
ber of  Convention  of  1780,  327. 
mentioned,  309. 
Sultan  of  Turkey,  what  America  has  done 
for,  52. 


364 


INDEX. 


Sumner,  Charles,  incident  of,  241. 
Sumuer,    Associate    Justice,    member    of 

Convention  of  1780,  327. 
Sutton,  town  of,  111). 
Sweetzer,  Dr.,  of  Worcester,  mentioned, 

188. 

Xaney,    Chief  Justice  Roger  B.,  death 

of,  103. 
Tappan,  Rev.  Dr.  David,  32. 
Taxation  in  Great  Britain,  17. 

upon  what  revenues  it  depends,  17. 
for  school  purposes,  in  Massachusetts, 

336. 
for  religious  purposes,  concerning,  339. 
Tcmploton,  town  of,  incorporation  of,  111. 
Tennessee,  State  of,  2. 
The   Ftdtralist,   Written     by   Alexander 

Hamilton,  21)3. 
Tilghman,  William,  American  jurist,  men- 
tioned, 28U. 
Townshend,  Ciiarles,  member  of  House  of 

Commons,  mentioned,  239. 
Tremont  Temple,  address  delivered  at,  131 . 
Tully,  mentioned,  35. 

Twe'nty-lirst  Masbachusetts  Regiment,  re- 
ceived its  colors,  10. 
its  war  history,  40,  41,  42. 
reception  at  Worcester,  Feb.  3, 1864,40. 
number  of  deatlis  in  the,  41. 
apostrophe  to  the  flag  of  the,  43. 
Twenty-fifth  Regiment  of    Massachusetts 

received  in  Faiieuil  Hall,  154. 
Tyler,  Jolin,   Daniel  AV'ebster  quoted  con- 
cerning, 74. 

Union  Jack.  67. 

Union  of  Great  Britain,  if  broken,  49. 
Union  of  United  States  if  broken,  49. 
Union  I'aciHc  Railroad,  opening  of,  199. 
Union,  patriotic  appeal  for  preservation  of 

the,  8. 
Union,  the,  to  be  preecrved,  2. 

must  be  preserved,  4,  G. 

of  the  provinces  of  America,  53. 
United  States,  the  republic  of,  6. 

revenues  of.  14. 
Unity,  the,  of  Anicricnn  nationality,  .W. 

Upton,    ,  oonimaiided    Massachusetts 

regiment.  4. 

Vail,  Rev.  Dr.,  trusiee  of  Amherst  Col- 
lege, 160. 


Valley  Forge,  mentioned,  205. 
Vane,  Sir  Henry,  232. 
Verplanck's  Point,  mentioned,  205. 
Veto  power,  concerning  the,  in  the  Consti- 
tution of  Massachusetts,  319. 
Virginia,  3. 

her  industries  compared  with  those  of 
Massacliusetts,  22. 

speculation  started  in,  53. 

resolutions  of,  98,  106. 

the  early  peopling  of,  225. 

Walker,   Rev.    Dr.   James,    president 

Harvard  College,  32. 
Walker,  Moses,  Revolutionary  soldier,  124. 
War,  money  must  be  raised  for  prosecu- 
tion of  the,  4. 
a  vigorous  prosecution    of    the,    pro- 
posed, 2,  5. 
the  grumblers  against  the,  7. 
scene  of,  tonlined  to  the  South,  10. 
the  extravagance  of,  10. 
cost  of  the,  up  to  July,  18G3,  11. 
of  1756,  Worcester  men  in  the,  204. 
War  debt,  concerning  the,  9, 14. 

concerning  the  payment  of,  16. 
upon  what  revenues  its   payment  de- 
pends, 17. 
Massachusetts  proportion  of  the,  17. 
what  Massachusettj  paid    during  the 
Revolution,  18,  19. 
War  history  of  Worcester,  203-208. 
War  meetimr.  speech  at  a,  at  Worcester,  1. 

held  in  Worcester,  1861.  202. 
War  tax,  Massachusetts  and  the,  speech  on, 
9. 
of  Massachusetts,  consideration  of,  24, 

25. 
Ward,  Nathaniel,  minister  at  Ipswich, 

299. 
mentioned,  315. 
Warner,   Oliver,    Secretary    of    State    of 

Massachusetts,  lis. 
Warren,  Joseph,  genius  of,  235. 
Wasliburn,  IMr.,  of  Worcester,  mentioned, 

187. 
Washburn,  Elihu  B..  minister  to  France, 

200. 
Washington.  George.  6. 

concerning  public  erertit,  15. 
incident  concerning.  21,  29,  80. 
at  CciMstitntional  Convention  at  Phila- 
delphia, 48. 
at  the  Constitutional  Convention,  56. 


INDEX. 


365 


Washington,  George,  quoted,  59. 

began  the  work  which  Lincoln  finished, 

107. 
mentioned,  lOG. 
concerning  slavery,  169. 
and  Lincoln  compared,  79,  172,  173. 
in  the  American  Uevolution,  172,  173. 
Greene,  Hamilton,  and  Lafayette  com- 
pared with,  173. 
Father  of  his  Country,  238. 
friendship  ot,  for  Hamilton,  289. 
Watt,  James,  Scotch  inventor,  19,  193. 

mentioned,  137. 
Watts,  Samuel,  one   of  the  purchasers  of 

the  town  of  Roj'alston,  113,  114. 
Ways  and  Means,  Mr.  Stevens  Chairman 

of,  11. 
Webster,  Daniel,  anecdote  of,  in  London, 
20. 
the  scholar  of  the  North,  63. 
tribute  to,  04. 

quoted  in  regard  to  President  Tyler,  74. 
concerning  nomination  of  Lincoln,  86. 
in  President  Lincoln's  place,  88. 
mentioned,  127. 
reply  to  Hayne,  IGG. 
quoted,  180. 
an  incident  of,  180. 
defender  of  the  Constitution,  245. 
member  of  Convention  of    1780,  329, 

330. 
debate  concerning  election  in  Massa- 
chusetts, 334. 
concerning  the  revisal  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, 340. 
Weitzel,  Godfrey,  American  major-general, 

mentioned,  104. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  his  rise  to  fame,  89. 

mentioned,  137,  138. 
Wentworth,  Thomas,  Earl  of  Strafford,  228. 
Whitney,  Eli,  inventor  of  the  cotton-gin,  19. 
Whittemore,  John,  Revolutionary  soldier, 

124. 
Wilberforce,  William,  quoted,  59. 

concerning  netcro  emancipation,  248. 
Wilde,   Richard  Henry,   member  of  Con- 
vention of  1820,"  .329. 
William  of  Orange,  quotation  of  Mr.  Mot- 
ley concerning,  105. 
William  the  Silent,  assassination  of,  346. 
Williams,  John,  the  charter  which  he  dic- 
tated, 230. 
Williams,  Roger,  removal  from  Massachu- 
setts, 230. 


Williams,  Roger,  his  coming  to  America, 
232. 
concerning  religious  freedom,  340. 
Willistons,    the,  endowments  of,    to  Har- 
vard College,  32. 
Wilson,  Henry,  concerning  taxation,  336. 
Winchendon,  town  of,  112. 
Winthrop,  John,  220. 
in  America,  232. 

coming  of,  to  Massachusetts,  298. 
Winthrop,  Robert  C.,  at  Whig  Convention 
at  Worcester,  82. 
quoted,  309. 

Witgift,  ,  mentioned,  226. 

"  With  malice  toward  none,"  105. 
Witherspoon,  John,  signer  of  the  Declara- 
tion, 01. 
Wolfe,  James,  English  officer,  victories  of, 

for  Britain,"'240. 
Woman,  emancipation  of,  260. 
occupation  of,  261. 
change  in  her  social  condition,  262. 
relation  to  marriage,  264. 
what  Christianity   has   done   for  her, 

266. 
considered  historically,  275. 
intellect  of,  compared  with  man,  276. 
in  conduct  of  public  affairs,  278-281. 
Franklin  quoted  concerning,  281. 
heroism  of,  284. 
Woman's  mission,  concerning,  259. 
Woman's  sphere,  what  is  it  V  282,  283. 
Women  as  teachers,  271. 
Woodbury,  Benjamin,  selectman  at  Roy- 
alston,  119. 
concerning  the  new  church  at  Royals- 
ton,  121. 
Revolutionary  soldier,  124. 
Wool,  John    E-,  American  general,   men- 
tioned, 3. 
Woollen  manufactures  in  Flanders,  134. 
Worcester  County  Regiment,   speech  con- 
cerning the,  1. 
Worcester,  raising  regiments  in.  2. 

speech  before  Republican  Convention 

at,  60. 

Whig  State  Convention  at,  in  1848,  82. 

meeting  at,  concerning  a  memorial  to 

fallen  soldiers  of  the  Rebellion,  151 

address   at,  in  memory  of    late  Levi 

Lincoln,  176. 
concerning  patent  inventions,  191. 
first  general  war  meeting  held  in,  202. 
the  15th  of  April,  1861,  at,  200. 


